Tropical Depression Two develops in the Gulf of Mexico
Tropical Depression Two developed in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico at 1500 UTC on 19 July 2026 — and 1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) Visible images (above) showed the slow trend of organization during the day (there was a 49-minute gap in image coverage as Mesoscale Sectors were rearranged). GLM Flash Points highlighted intermittent lightning activity associated with areas of deep convection. Tropical Depression Two was moving very slowly through an environment of relatively low wind shear, and was traversing warm water.
Metop ASCAT surface scatterometer winds at 1424 UTC (below) were generally at or below 25 kts — and wind gusts from nearby buoys and ships were also 25 kts or less in the animation shown above.
The corresponding 1-minute GOES-19 Infrared Window images (below) indicated that the coldest cloud-top infrared brightness temperatures of convection were generally in the -65 to -70 C range.