Lorenzo forms in the Atlantic

AccuWeather

AccuWeather Hurricane Expert Alex DaSilva was live on the AccuWeather Network on Oct. 13 to discuss the latest on the tropics.

Transcript

00:00All right, joining us right now is AccuWeather lead hurricane expert, Alex DeSilva.

00:03You know, Alex, over the last two weeks, the tropics has really heated up.

00:08Now, it doesn't seem like it because, thankfully, we haven't had any, well, named storms impact the United States.

00:15But now, here we go, another storm named this morning.

00:20That's the third in the last 10 days or so.

00:23Yeah, we've seen another little explosion of storms across the Atlantic Basin.

00:27This one is Lorenzo.

00:28Luckily, it's way out in the Atlantic Basin, not close to any land right now.

00:32It's going to do some loops out in the middle of the Atlantic.

00:35Lorenzo is the circle that you see kind of in the middle of your screen right here.

00:38That storm is moving basically to the northwest or north-northwest right now.

00:42So it shouldn't impact any land.

00:45Should strengthen, though.

00:46Could get near hurricane status sometime later this week.

00:49As you can see here, it's going to be doing some loops, and then it should eventually fall apart.

00:53But this isn't the one that we're really worried about.

00:56It's the one following Lorenzo.

00:57You know, ever since the hurricane season started, Alex, in the last, well, let's say in the last six weeks,

01:03you and the long-range team have been looking at the Caribbean and saying,

01:07boy, if anything could get into the Caribbean, we have a problem.

01:10Now, 12th named storm, just to give a real update, some accounting, so to speak,

01:16when you look at the season, it's kind of been an average season overall.

01:22Yeah, it's been mixed.

01:23I mean, if you look at the number of named storms and where we're at, 12th named storm, the average is October 11th.

01:28So we're right about average right there.

01:29We're behind in hurricanes.

01:31We've seen four hurricanes.

01:32The average fifth is way back September 28th.

01:35So we're considerably behind in the number of hurricanes.

01:38But the hurricanes that we have had have all been very powerful.

01:41So you can look at the third, you know, we've already seen three major hurricanes.

01:45Two of them have been cat fives, and we're ahead of schedule on that.

01:48So a mixed season overall.

01:51There it is.

01:51And what strikes me about this tropical wave, it's pretty far south.

01:55In fact, it is south of 20 degrees north.

01:58It looks like around 15 degrees or so.

02:01So compared to Lorenzo when that came off and other storms, this is already starting pretty far south.

02:07It is.

02:08And I think that's what's going to hold it back here in the short term.

02:11I mean, you can see it's got a good amount of thunderstorms with it.

02:13But the problem is, is that when the storms are near the equator, they don't get a lot of spin down there.

02:18So it's going to have to lift to the north a little bit.

02:20But what's to the north?

02:22Shear is to the north.

02:23So I think it's going to be a little bit of a battle.

02:25If it goes too far north, it might just get ripped apart.

02:28But if it's able to stay far enough south and still kind of maintain itself,

02:33the concern is that when it's approaching the islands around the 16th to 18th,

02:38you know, that's where things could try to develop as it's approaching the islands,

02:43as it's also gaining some latitude.

02:45And then there's a little bit more spin with the storm as well.

02:48We're working on a graph to give you a timeline here of what this is going to do.

02:52But it should approach the islands as we head into early next week.

02:56Now, here's the problem, Alex.

02:57These are water temperature anomalies.

03:01And that's warm water in the Caribbean to begin with.

03:03But we're looking at water temperatures 3, 4 degrees above the historical averages.

03:08So that puts water temperatures in the upper 80s.

03:11Yeah, it certainly does.

03:13And it's not only about the surface.

03:15We always talk about ocean heat content.

03:17The highest ocean heat content in the Atlantic Basin is always in the western Caribbean.

03:22So it's possible that this storm ends up making it there.

03:24There's going to be a fork in the road, though, I think either the storm is going to be lifting

03:28to the north through the Caribbean, or it could potentially be pushed all the way west

03:33across the Caribbean.

03:34But either way, I think this is one we're going to have to watch really, really carefully.

03:38We haven't had anything disturb those waters yet in the Caribbean.

03:41And it's like bath water in that area.

03:43So if anything organized is able to get in there, we really have to watch out.

03:48Two forks in the road.

03:49Does it survive this year in the Atlantic?

03:51One, if it does, it probably gets in the Caribbean.

03:55And then the second fork, does it lift north or stay in the Caribbean?

03:58That's what we're going to watch.

04:00AccuWeather lead hurricane expert Alex Da Silva.

04:02Thanks for joining us here on AccuWeather Early.

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