When could we see the next tropical storm in the Atlantic?

After Humberto and Imelda, the tropics are fairly quiet again, but that may not last.

Transcript

00:00You can see a trough, some showers kind of dotting the waters off to the east of Kiowa Island,

00:05but we moved the map east and we're dealing with some pretty robust showers and storms here with

00:10the tropical wave train, so that really has our attention as well. Big reset here on what's going

00:16on on the whole of the North Atlantic. Again, north of the equator here we have former Hurricane

00:21Umberto, which is now being called Storm Amy by the UK Met Office. They name their winter storms

00:27with wind and rain. Former Hurricane Imelda, we're calling it a tropical rainstorm. Technically

00:32it's no longer tropical. It's cold core over that cold water of the North Atlantic. And

00:36then we have an area of low pressure spinning its wheels off the east side of Florida, and

00:40the tropical wave here that is moving west of Africa is really getting our attention. But

00:45overall, you'll notice, I wanted to point out the low-level clouds here blowing east to west,

00:50those kind of almost gray low-level clouds. And then you go upstairs where the clouds are

00:56taller. It's colder upstairs, so the infrared satellite shows with the brighter, more vivid

01:01colors, upper-level clouds. So the clouds are kind of tracers in the atmosphere, showing

01:06how the winds and the low levels versus upstairs are at odds with one another here off the east

01:11coast of Florida. So we're going to see just limited opportunity for development here. I

01:16think wind shear is going to probably keep this system in check, and it's just a low chance

01:20of development there. Regardless, the disturbance will bring some heavy rain to parts of Florida,

01:25and there's a helper low there in the central northern Gulf as well. Meanwhile, that tropical

01:29wave moving west of Africa, this one has plenty of moisture in its path, so there's no dry

01:34air that's going to inhibit it. The only inhibition it may have would be wind shear if it drifts

01:39the least bit north. Look at the deep purple here. Strong wind shear. This is the wind that

01:43kind of keeps systems disheveled and weak. Look at the protection we have off the east coast

01:47of the U.S. right now with wind shear. If it makes its way into the Caribbean, it would be

01:51staying south, so that's the only real path it has into the Caribbean. Again, staying

01:57south of the wind shear. You can see this particular model actually is in the process of kind of

02:02curving it northward. That would be an out-to-see scenario. It would be steered, redirected away

02:06from the east coast. But if it stays farther south, there's your concern. A week to two weeks

02:11from now, we may be dealing with a storm festering in the Caribbean. About a 25% chance of that happening

02:16at about a 75% chance of it pulling north.