Patty forms near Azores, still watching Caribbean for next storm

Since my previous post last Friday, the area of concern in the western Caribbean has still not developed into anything, but it's decidedly closer now.  This could be a threat to the Gulf coast in a week.  Elsewhere, Subtropical Storm Patty formed near the Azores on Saturday morning and will pass over the islands this weekend.  Finally, there is a tropical disturbance approaching Hispaniola and tracking west.

Starting with Subtropical Storm Patty, this is the 16th named storm of the season, and it is not expected to reach hurricane intensity.  But, it will pass directly over the Azores on Sunday bringing tropical storm conditions there.

  

By Monday, the storm will lose its subtropical characteristics and weaken, so this will not be around for very long.  The last time the Azores had a direct landfall of something was Hurricane Alex in January 2016, so it's not too common.

Next, let's go way west to the disturbance near Hispaniola.  This will unload heavy rain as it treks along the spine of the Greater Antilles.  Conditions are not too favorable for it to develop into a tropical cyclone, so it will mostly "just" be a rain-maker.  In a few days, this will likely be absorbed by the larger disturbance that's been festering in the western Caribbean for the past ten-ish days as it drifts north.

Then, we have the disturbance in the western Caribbean.  Models have been keying on its eventual development for well over a week, and now, NHC is giving it an 80% chance of becoming a tropical cyclone.  The next name on the list is Rafael.

There's finally some agreement among global models that this will develop, and track generally northward into the Gulf.  That's about where the agreement ends, but at least we have that!  The maps below show tracks from the American (left) and European (right) model ensembles out through Friday evening.  The background shading is the sea surface temperature.

The American model's ensemble is generally stronger and further east than the European's.  As far as timing goes, most members reach Cuba's latitude on Wednesday.  Then, it's too early to determine if the track will be closer to the Florida peninsula or the more likely track into the central Gulf.  Of course, once a storm is in the Gulf, it has to make landfall somewhere... there's no way out.

As far as intensity goes, a tropical storm looks very likely.  Global models tend to underestimate tropical cyclone intensity because of their relatively poorer resolution, so several of these members shown above would be at hurricane intensity.  Don't look closely at specific tracks as they inevitably shift around, but you get a sense of the likely track and intensity.

This disturbance will be sitting over the western Caribbean for the next four days or so, and the water is *extremely* warm.  The ocean heat content averaged over the Caribbean is near-record high, nearly tied with 2023, which was far above any other previous year.  The same goes for the sea surface temperature.

Hurricane season ends in four weeks, so we need to still be watching things closely, especially in an active season like this with crazy-warm ocean temperatures still lingering everywhere.

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