 |
| Dexter's position as of Wednesday morning is marked and labeled, then the two areas of interest are marked with orange Xs and their area of potential formation in the coming seven days is denoted by the orange shapes. |
The National Hurricane Center is giving both disturbances a 40% of development within a week. Dexter is forecast to intensify somewhat, perhaps even reaching hurricane intensity on Thursday as it transitions to an extratropical cyclone. When that occurs, it would not be considered a hurricane, but rather just a very intense extratropical cyclone (hurricanes are tropical cyclones by definition). It's already interacting with a trough to its west and is quite sheared, so that transition is underway. It will not impact land as it tracks eastward across the far northern Atlantic. It's presently a tropical storm with 50 mph peak winds located south of Newfoundland.
Dexter is the fourth named storm of the season, and reached that mark 11 days ahead of climatology. There has not been a hurricane yet this season, and the average date of first hurricane formation is August 11.
These two maps show the trackable low pressure centers over the next seven days from the European model ensemble (left) and the American model ensemble (right). They are in generally good agreement on the forecast of both areas of interest: the one off the southeast U.S. coast heads off to the northeast and remains fairly weak, and the easterly wave in the deep tropics should recurve to the north by the time it reaches ~60°W (roughly the longitude of the Lesser Antilles). The European ensemble is quite a bit more bullish on the development and intensification of the wave though.
There's another curious feature worth pointing out in these two maps: a few tracks popping up in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. The lows first appear this weekend west of south Florida and then head north toward the Gulf coast by Monday-Tuesday. There is not much support for this development among the models, and I had a hard time tracking it back to an origin; it appears to evolve out of a weak feature that's currently near Hispaniola, then moves westward. It's worth noting that the water temperatures in the eastern Gulf are currently 1-2°C above average for the date -- which in an absolute sense, works out to a steamy 31-32°C!
The season has been abnormally quiet so far, but that can turn around quickly. As of today, the Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) is at just 28% of average for the date. 2022 actually had an even slower start, but before that, you have to go back to 2009 to find a quieter first 65 days of the season.
The next two names on this year's list are Erin and Fernand, and now that we're into August, expect activity to ramp up quickly, particularly by the end of the month (as illustrated in the climatological chart above).
