Back on Sept 25, an easterly wave exited the African coast and has been making its way westward through the deep tropics. For much of the last 1.5 weeks, it has been a feature of interest, but not great interest. In the past couple of days however, the circulation and convection have become more concentrated, and the system is now just north of Puerto Rico. Using the long-range radar from San Juan, we can see the weak circulation: http://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=JUA&product=N0Z&overlay=11101111&loop=yes.
It's in about 10kts of vertical shear (expected to decrease slightly over the next couple of days) and over 29C water (remaining steady over the next couple of days). The majority of models now develop this system, bringing it to TS intensity within a day, and hurricane intensity in 2-4 days. As far as the track goes, models are in agreement that it will recurve out to the open ocean in about 2 days... drifting to the NW prior to that.
The next name on the list is Otto.
It's truly remarkable that the US has not had a hurricane landfall this season... it's been quite an active season so far, with 14 named storms, 7 hurricanes, and 5 major hurricanes. But, countries to our south haven't been so fortunate. It's been a very bad year for landfalls and tropical cyclone effects in most of central America and Mexico... also Bermuda and Newfoundland had noteworthy, historic encounters.
Please visit my tropical Atlantic headquarters.
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