An easterly wave that developed in the deep tropics over the past few days continues to get more organized, and is very close to becoming the season's sixth tropical cyclone. It crossed the Lesser Antilles on Monday night and is headed toward Puerto Rico as of midday Tuesday. If it becomes a tropical storm, the next name on the list is Fred.
 |
| Mid-level water vapor animation from Tuesday morning. The yellows to the north and west of the storm indicate dry air. |
It has some significant hurdles to overcome in the coming days, including mountainous islands, dry air, and vertical wind shear. So ignoring the intensity question for now, it will still track over or near Hispaniola on Wednesday, Cuba and the Bahamas on Thursday and Friday, then south Florida on Saturday -- bringing heavy rain and gusty winds along with it.
For south Florida, tropical storm conditions could begin on Friday night, with the storm's closest approach sometime during the first part of Saturday. Beyond south Florida, it should head into the Gulf of Mexico, and likely turn northward into northern Florida, much like Elsa did a month ago. There are far too many question marks between now and then to worry about the intensity, but as of now, models keep it on the weak side.
The global model ensembles (European on the left, American on the right) agree quite well on the track over the next five days, and on minimal strengthening. This clustering of tracks AND no wild intensity outliers is pretty rare. At this point, a hurricane looks very unlikely, but maintaining tropical depression or tropical storm status through the next five days is the safer bet.
Using the 1991-2020 "climate normal" period of record, the average date of the sixth named storm formation is August 28, so Fred would be about 2.5 weeks ahead of par if it forms soon. Some other recent years that had (at least) the sixth named storm by this date were 2020, 2017, 2012, 2005, and 1995... a rather infamous list of hyper-active hurricane seasons.
In graphical form, those dates accumulate like this during the season:
- Visit the Tropical Atlantic Headquarters.
- Subscribe to get these updates emailed to you.
- Follow me on Twitter
No comments:
Post a Comment