What factors could lead to a tropical storm by late October?

AccuWeather

A tropical wave in the Atlantic faces a lot of obstacles over the next week, but if everything lines up just wrong, it could pose a threat to the U.S. before Halloween.

Transcript

00:00vacationers, people planning to go on cruises. I know a lot of you have cruises planned this time

00:05of year and it can really be concerning when, you know, we're talking about a tropical wave and

00:09you're like, well, I have a cruise planned. Is that going to impact it? Well, let's talk about

00:13whatever you have going on that this could bring impacts to because this is the main feature we're

00:17watching. And one thing I want to point out about satellite here in the last four hours, the

00:21convective activity, the rain and the thunderstorms, it's moved farther to the south. So that could be

00:26an indication that this wave itself is moving a little further to the south. Let's talk about why

00:31that matters because overall we're tracking this until it gets over towards the Caribbean. We're

00:38not really concerned about this wave developing until next week. That's the time frame here, the

00:4220th to the 24th. We have attacked as a low chance right now because there's a lot that this wave has

00:48to fight against and fight through in order to develop into a named system. The next name on the

00:53list is Melissa, by the way. And there's one other area that we're watching this one a little bit in

00:58the near term, but this would be a subtropical storm. If anything happens, think about Karen.

01:04If you remember less than 24 hours, it was a subtropical storm that got the name Karen before

01:10losing that wind intensity. All right, back to our tropical wave. Well, the location right now,

01:16there's some wind shear to the north, stronger wind shear in the darker purple here. That's bad for

01:21development. It's one of the three main factors that we look at when we're tracking these waves

01:26across the Atlantic. Now, let's talk about why I said it might not be a good thing that this storm

01:31system is moving to the south or this tropical wave. And not a good thing for it, a good thing for

01:37us because, of course, we don't want it to develop into a named system. A little further to the south,

01:41especially as we go forward, there's more strong wind shear. Too far to the north, there's strong wind

01:47shear too far to the south. So it's kind of a Goldilocks situation. It has to be in the exact

01:51right location as far as its latitude all the way the rest of the way across the Atlantic. So

01:57here's the timeline. Here's what we're watching. Through Sunday, we're not really concerned about

02:03this. It's going to remain unorganized fighting against some of that stronger wind shear that it's

02:07already started to encounter. Then we get into early next week. This is when, if it has survived,

02:13if there's anything left, it could slowly start to organize. It reaches a fork in the road then. If it

02:18goes to the north, well, the dip in the jet stream, that protects us for the most part. But if it goes

02:24into the Caribbean, which at this point most modeling is suggesting that's the track it would

02:29take, well, then it moves into the perfect conditions to develop into a named storm. Very warm

02:35water, which is what you're seeing here, all the oranges and the yellows, and low wind shear, then it

02:39could threaten the U.S.

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