00:00All right, joining us right now, AccuWeather lead hurricane expert, meteorologist Alex DaSilva.
00:05And you know what, Alex?
00:06Overall, here we are in mid-October, and in a sense, it's been an active week in the tropics, hasn't it?
00:14Yeah, it certainly has, though.
00:15Of course, we had Jerry form, you know, several days ago, and it's coming through the islands right now.
00:19Of course, we just had Karen up in the northern Atlantic, and then, of course, we have the coastal storm
00:24that's going to be coming up the coast here this weekend and into early next week.
00:27But you can see the two areas that we have highlighted there.
00:30Jerry, still coming through the Caribbean right now, the northern Leeward Islands,
00:33and then Karen is almost off the map here, almost up towards Greenland, it seems like.
00:38But it's a subtropical storm right now.
00:41All right, let's take a look at Jerry.
00:43And, you know, we thought that Jerry had a shot of becoming the season's fifth hurricane,
00:49but we've taken that forecast down.
00:51We're just going to keep it a storm, and it should stay well east of Bermuda.
00:55Yeah, it's battling a lot of wind shear right now, bringing some very heavy rain to the islands right now.
00:59But there's still an opportunity for it to become a hurricane east of Bermuda.
01:03But as of right now, we think the wind shear is going to be very strong over the storm,
01:07and we have lowered the forecast for Jerry.
01:09But like you said, no threat to the U.S.
01:11Boy, that's been a story all season.
01:12It hasn't been the wind shear across the Atlantic.
01:15In fact, Alex, the last two seasons, we really have battled a lot of wind shear in the tropical Atlantic.
01:22Yeah, some years you just have more wind shear than other years.
01:25And then this year, there's been a lot of wind shear a little bit, you know, kind of more in the mid-latitude.
01:31So as the storms have climbed to the north, they've really entered that area of wind shear that has really torn them apart,
01:37or at least, you know, had them get weakened by that.
01:40But the season so far, pretty much on track overall.
01:43It is.
01:44I mean, right?
01:44You can see the numbers here.
01:46We've got 11 named storms, four hurricanes.
01:48We'll have to see if Jerry gets there or not.
01:50Major hurricanes were right on track there.
01:52And three impacts to the United States.
01:55We've had a couple that have grazed the coast that we still count in that category.
01:59But season's not over yet.
02:01At the beginning of the season, we forecasted three to six.
02:03That means we still have room for a couple more U.S. impacts for the rest of the season.
02:06Next two storm names are Lorenzo and Melissa.
02:12Let's take a look at our tropical wave coming off Africa right now, Alex.
02:17Yeah, this is going to be the next thing to watch in the deep tropics here.
02:20This tropical wave is going to be coming west.
02:23It's going to have a chance to develop.
02:24We think it's low chance right now because you can see it's going to be climbing to the north.
02:28And so there's a lot of wind shear to the north.
02:31And so as that storm gains latitude, we think it's going to run into that.
02:35And that should stifle some of its growth.
02:37So we might get a named storm out of it.
02:39But it's likely to be, you know, fairly slow at intensification if it develops at all.
02:45The next tropical wave, Alex, is intriguing.
02:48We think it's going to come off Africa early next week.
02:52But unlike this tropical wave, the next one may be a little different.
02:58Yeah, it could be.
02:59It could slide south of that wind shear like we were just talking about.
03:02There's a lot of wind shear once you get a little bit further to the north.
03:05And so if this next tropical wave, if it can dodge some of that wind shear and stay far enough south,
03:11that's a way we could develop a storm down there.
03:13We're a long way out.
03:14We would be talking probably towards the end of next week when we would be looking at that.
03:19But we have to watch it.
03:20If it can sneak to the south, the Caribbean islands are going to have to watch things closely.
03:24And you can see how warm the water is in the Caribbean.
03:27So if that storm is able to get in there, you know, we may have to keep a close eye out for that.
03:33You know, there's this dip in the jet stream that's causing the storm right now, Alex.
03:37There's some indication that a little of that can break off.
03:42And then we may have to worry at some point, if not early next week.
03:46But as we go through this month of October, at some point, Alex, there's going to be a price to pay
03:51for all that warm water in the Caribbean and Gulf.
03:54Boy, we've been saying it for weeks now.
03:56We think something's going to happen down there.
03:57It hasn't yet.
03:58But, again, we're getting into the time of the year when we really have to look closer to home,
04:02especially in late October and November.
04:04And I find it really hard to believe that we're going to go an entire hurricane season
04:08without something developing in the southern Gulf or western Caribbean.
04:12So we still have to watch this area very, very carefully, especially in the second half of October.
04:17AccuWeather lead hurricane expert, Alex De Silva.
04:19Thanks for joining us here on AccuWeather Early.
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