TROPICAL DEVELOPMENT POSSIBLE NEAR SOUTH FLORIDA LATER THIS WEEK… The National Hurricane Center says there is a low-end (20%) chance that tropical storm formation may happen later this week into the upcoming weekend near The Bahamas and south Florida as a tropical wave approaches from the southeast. The system has been designated INVEST 95L. Early model guidance points to this system potentially developing and moving rapidly northeast into the open waters of the tropical Atlantic Ocean, although it is entirely too early to know with confidence whether that will, indeed, happen. Here are the headlines this evening…
IMPRESSIVE ‘LOOK’ ON SATELLITE IMAGERY… INVEST 95L is currently producing heavy rain and thunderstorms across much of the Lesser Antilles just southeast of Puerto Rico in the eastern Caribbean Sea. Much of the cloud cover depicted on the visible satellite imagery is upper-level clouds. I suspect that once this burst of convection fades, it will reveal the true nature of the system: Weak and fairly unorganized as of now. The system will move northwest in the days ahead, likely dropping excessive rainfall across Puerto Rico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.
UPPER-LEVEL WINDS SEEM UNFAVORABLE… Based on the latest model data, it certainly seems like the environment ahead of INVEST 95L will be fairly hostile and not majorly supportive of tropical storm formation later this week. This is because of winds higher in the atmosphere, aka atmospheric wind shear, that will likely rip the system apart at least somewhat as it moves over The Bahamas.
IMPACTS UNLIKELY IN SOUTH ALABAMA OR NORTHWEST FLORIDA… There is no cause for panic, worry, or even giving this system much thought in our local area. There is very high chance, at this point, that direct local impacts in south Alabama or northwest Florida won’t ever happen because of this system. The ECMWF (Euro) model barely develops this system before lifting it rapidly northeast away from the United States. The legacy version of the Global Forecast System (GFS) does develop this system east of Florida before indicating a rapid move out into the open waters of the Atlantic.