Watching the Caribbean. Don’t Panic.

Area of potential development

The National Hurricane Center suggests there’s a 20% chance that storms from a tropical wave could organize a bit better in the coming week and turn into a tropical system.

Satellite Image as of 1:30 PM ET July 28, 2019. Credit: NOAA/NESDIS/STAR/GOES

The storm complex is expected to interact with the islands of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola (home to Dominican Republic and Haiti), which will limit development over the next couple of days… but it does move into slightly more favorable waters after that. Current expectations for movement put it generally toward the Florida Peninsula, but there’s not reason to panic at the moment. Development chances are still relatively low, and the forecast models just can’t seem to really pick up on this system, so there’s not much in the way of agreement about where it’s going… much less how strong it’ll be when it gets there.

Here’s the full text of the NHC 2PM advisory:

Tropical Weather Outlook
NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL
200 PM EDT Sun Jul 28 2019

For the North Atlantic...Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico:

1. A persistent area of cloudiness and thunderstorms located over the
eastern Caribbean Sea is associated with a tropical wave. This
disturbance is expected to move west-northwestward to northwestward
across the north-central Caribbean Sea during the next few days,
producing locally heavy rainfall and possibly some flooding across
Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. Little development of the disturbance is
expected due to interaction with land.  However, the system is
forecast to emerge over the Straits of Florida by the end of the
week where environmental conditions could be a little more conducive
for development to occur.
* Formation chance through 48 hours...low...10 percent.
* Formation chance through 5 days...low...20 percent.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.