Watching the Caribbean and Gulf for tropical activity

AccuWeather

AccuWeather lead hurricane expert Alex DaSilva was live on the AccuWeather Network on Oct. 10 to discuss areas that could undergo tropical development in the coming days.

Transcript

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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