Developing storm gaining strength in the Caribbean

AccuWeather

There's a tropical system brewing in the Caribbean, which could develop into a hurricane. Floridians are urged to monitor this system, which could put the state at risk late next week.

Transcript

00:00Alex and I mean the handwritings on the wall the handwriting was on the wall

00:04late last week when we looked at this area that we were going to get another storm and

00:09Certainly when you look at the satellite picture things are our area of thunderstorms is starting to get better organized

00:15Yeah, they certainly are and I was looking at a satellite earlier. That's able to kind of

00:19Take a look at what the wind speeds are doing currently at the surface

00:22And I'm already starting to see signs that there's a bit of a circulation starting to form south of Jamaica right now

00:29Hurricane hunters will be in this thing early this afternoon

00:32So we should get a much better idea of where this Center is starting to

00:36Consolidate and that will certainly help with the forecast here going forward. All right ideal conditions for development

00:43I want to show you this

00:44this is the ocean heat content Gulf of Mexico and also the Caribbean and

00:48Ocean heat content a little different product than just looking at the water temperatures

00:55Yeah, it certainly is the ocean heat content essentially is how deep into the ocean right those warm waters extend now everywhere where you see

01:02Orange and red on this map is where 80 the 80 degree temperature line extends 3 to even 400 feet

01:09down below the surface of

01:11The ocean there and the Western Caribbean has the highest ocean heat content of the entire

01:16Atlantic Basin and that's exactly where we expect this tropical storm and eventual hurricane to develop in

01:23Let's a little take a little x-ray of the atmosphere here a couple of things on the water vapor loop of note

01:27Dry air not anywhere around the center of circulation

01:31Alex as you said, it's broad. There's a lot of moisture in the blue and white, but you see what I see an overall

01:38clockwise

01:39Circulation across the Caribbean. Why is that important?

01:42Yeah

01:43That's important because an area of that's an area of high pressure essentially building over top of whatever is going to be developing and that

01:49Allows the storm to really breathe here and you can see here

01:52This is our wind shear product the light purple indicating areas of very very low wind shear around the Caribbean

01:58You see areas of very high wind shear

02:00But there's a pocket there where we expect this storm to develop very little to no wind shear

02:05And so that's why I think this could develop very very quickly once a center starts getting

02:10Consolidated and you had mentioned to me this yesterday

02:13You were concerned not only of a hurricane that this was going to go to a major

02:16Hurricane by the time we get into the weekend here and major hurricane maximum stain winds of at least a hundred and eleven miles per

02:23Hour. Yeah, I think certainly we'll be dealing with a hurricane by the end of this week

02:26And I think we'll be dealing with a major hurricane at least no later than this weekend here again

02:31All the conditions are coming together for this to rapidly intensify again

02:34We have plenty of moisture low wind shear very very warm water temperatures and ocean heat content

02:39I don't really see a whole lot that could prevent this from really exploding into a major hurricane

02:44I guess the only thing I really see is potential land interaction

02:47The storm could get close to Central America and if it gets close to Central America

02:52It could kind of tangle with the land a little bit there and that could you know

02:55Prevent this from getting really really powerful

02:57But either way I do expect a strong hurricane to be in the Western Caribbean here over the next couple of days

03:02I really quickly here this system kind of meanders around in the Caribbean or in the Northwest Caribbean as we head toward the weekend

03:10And then here's the problem high pressure

03:12We were hoping that high would stay maintained across Florida and drive this away from the United States perhaps moving west

03:19There's nothing that suggests that any longer though that high leaves

03:23Then you have that dip in the jet stream coming in across, Texas, and that is why the windows open for, Florida

03:30Yeah, it certainly is we're expecting a turn to the north sometime

03:34And and you know it's gonna depend how close it gets to land

03:37To see how strong it gets in the Gulf of Mexico if it can avoid land

03:40If it can kind of take more of that eastern side of our cone here

03:44It could avoid a lot of that land and we could be dealing with potentially even a major hurricane in the south in the southern

03:49Gulf of Mexico here now a better case would be if it goes into into land here it kind of disrupts the circulation

03:55But either way I think the residents of Central and South Florida need to watch this very very carefully as we could very well have

04:02A hurricane on their doorstep mid to late next week

04:05Accuweather lead hurricane expert Alex de Silva Alex. Thanks for joining us here on Accuweather early

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