Developing tropical wave eyes the Caribbean and US

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Alex DaSilva and Bernie Rayno monitor the tropical activity taking place near the Caribbean Sea. This tropical rainstorm may strengthen into a depression depending on its track across the Caribbean.

Transcript

00:00Alex, let's take a look at the system here, and it looks so much different, so much more

00:06vigorous this morning than it did this time yesterday.

00:09In fact, a big blowup of clouds now north and east of Puerto Rico in the last couple

00:15of hours.

00:16Yes, certainly this tropical wave is starting to get better organized, but it's going to

00:20be a very slow progression here over the next couple of days.

00:23Starting to see much more thunderstorms developing around a center of circulation that's trying

00:28to form somewhere north of the islands or so.

00:31Again, still not getting that close circulation, that's why this thing hasn't been designated

00:35as a tropical storm or tropical depression yet, but we're starting to see the early signs

00:39of organization here as thunderstorms begin to form.

00:43Yes, there's less dry air now.

00:44There's still some, and that's certainly inhibiting it, but you know, you go back, you saw a lot

00:49of dry air around the center, certainly less in the last several hours.

00:53Yes, this is all the Saharan dust that's coming from the continent of Africa, coming across

00:58the Atlantic Basin, starting to even see some all the way into Texas, so again, that's

01:01that same Saharan dust that's been kind of choking the system off as it's come across

01:06the Atlantic.

01:07Now, what we're going to see over the next couple of days, this Saharan dust and the

01:10wind shear that the storm is currently dealing with is going to begin to wane.

01:14You see those whiter colors closer to the United States?

01:18That's less wind shear, so the storm is moving into a more favorable environment for strengthening

01:23here toward the end of the week.

01:25There's one more hurdle it has to clear.

01:26I always call it the shredder, the paper shredder or tropical system shredder.

01:32That is called Hispaniola.

01:33Yes, the mountains on some of these islands, 6, 7, 8,000 foot peaks here, and that really

01:38disrupts the tropical systems as they come very close to those islands, so we're going

01:42to have to watch to see where the center of circulation with this thing forms.

01:47If it forms north of the islands, the system might be able to stay just to the north of

01:50those high peaks and might have a better chance of strengthening.

01:53However, if it goes over those islands, it might have a little bit more of a difficult

01:57time strengthening just due to those really high peaks.

02:00So it's Hispaniola, that is going to be the, and you could even see the way you have this

02:04drawn is that we're taking into account what happens in Hispaniola.

02:09That's why at this point, we only have a medium, but if it gets through Hispaniola, I know

02:15there's been discussion about making a higher area, correct?

02:19Yeah, that's absolutely right.

02:20We're going to have to watch the progression of this thing as it moves to the northwest.

02:24Now we're seeing a lot more blowup of convection right now.

02:26The system is beginning to organize.

02:28Now what I think might happen here is as the system organizes, stronger systems tend to

02:33pull to the north.

02:34That's why currently right now we're favoring a storm track east of the peninsula of Florida

02:39because again, it's organizing right now.

02:41Storms that are stronger tend to curve to the north faster.

02:44Now if the system stays a little bit weaker, however, there's still an opportunity though

02:49for it to end up in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

02:51We're just going to have to keep a close eye to see what happens here over the next 48

02:55to 72 hours.

02:56All right.

02:57We're always looking ahead.

02:58You and the long range team has identified another possible area later this month.

03:03Yeah, it doesn't look like the tropical season is done.

03:05It looks like things are only going to be picking up here as we go throughout the month

03:09of August here.

03:10We're highlighting an area from the central Atlantic all the way to the islands here through

03:14the middle of the month.

03:16We're concerned about those really warm sea surface temperatures.

03:18That hasn't been a problem all year.

03:20The wind shear is beginning to lessen across the Atlantic and that dry Saharan dust is

03:26also going to begin to wane as we head towards the heart of the hurricane season.

03:30So really look for things to start picking up as we go toward the middle of August.

03:34Accuweath Elite Hurricane Expert, Alex DeSilva.

03:37Alex, great information.

03:38Thanks for joining us.

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