00:00Joining us right now is AccuWeather lead, hurricane expert, Alex DaSilva.
00:05You know, Alex, it was about two weeks ago when we, you know, the modeling is so good now
00:11that it could really pick up systems when they come off Africa.
00:15And this is the one that we were saying this is the one to watch
00:21because this tropical wave is doing something that for the first time
00:26that other tropical waves this season haven't been able to do.
00:31Yeah, this one actually made it into the Caribbean all in one piece.
00:34We've seen multiple tropical waves try to get into the Caribbean,
00:37but they really have just croaked before they've gotten into the eastern Caribbean.
00:40All the tropical waves that we've really seen develop have moved north of the Caribbean
00:44or have clipped to the northeastern Caribbean as they've gone.
00:47But this one you can see right here, eastern Caribbean,
00:50it has a big blowup of thunderstorms around it right now.
00:53Now, I was looking at some satellite data that measures actually the chaos of the seafoam,
00:58you know, and that kind of gives us an idea of if we have a closed circulation or not.
01:02We don't right now.
01:03There is no west wind in there right now.
01:06So we're not near this thing being named right now.
01:09But it certainly does look impressive so far.
01:12Now, the question is, and you'll notice, well, why do you have such a large area of development?
01:18It's because, well, there's scenarios, we'll get into it in a second,
01:23but, I mean, there is going to be multiple opportunities over the next seven days for this system to develop.
01:30Yeah, right now it's moving very fast, between 15 and 20 miles per hour or so,
01:35and that's a little bit fast for development right now.
01:37You usually need to get these things below 15 forward speed to really start to see them develop.
01:43So I think over the next day or so it will begin to slow down,
01:45and then it will have a little bit of a better chance as it moves west across the area.
01:51But, boy, oh, boy, look at these waters.
01:53Everywhere in orange and yellow is water temperatures above average for this time of the year.
01:58And in the central and western Caribbean, rather,
02:01these waters are the warmest in the entire Atlantic Basin, mid to upper 80s.
02:06So plenty of heat energy to work with.
02:10And oftentimes when you have the water this warm, you can overcome other challenges for development.
02:16And let's take a look at the two other ingredients, moisture and wind shear.
02:21Let's talk about the moisture.
02:23I don't see any dry air coming into this tropical wave at the current time.
02:28I guess, again, the dry air denoured by the yellow shading.
02:32Yeah, yeah.
02:33We talked about, you know, most of the tropical season.
02:35A lot of these waves have been plagued by dry air or wind shear.
02:38And this one certainly is not really being plagued by dry air.
02:41It has a moisture pocket to work with.
02:43And I think pretty much through most of its lifetime it's going to have that with it.
02:46The wind shear is a little bit of a different story.
02:49It's dealing with some wind shear.
02:50It's not extreme.
02:51I would call it moderate wind shear right now.
02:54But as it moves west, I think that wind shear is going to decrease a little bit.
02:58It's not going to go to zero.
02:59It's always going to have, I think, some wind shear with it.
03:01But with those other factors, you know, working for development in terms of the moisture and the sea surface temperatures, like you mentioned, I think it's going to be able to overcome some of those challenges that it will face with some more light to moderate wind shear.
03:15All right, we have a scenario graphic here.
03:17There's always scenarios with this.
03:19By the way, the scenario that this would be so far south and be ripped apart by South America is now gone.
03:25It's far enough north that it's not going to be.
03:27All right, let's talk about the northern track here.
03:31The Wednesday through Friday, that's scenario number one.
03:34Yeah, indeed it is.
03:36And this is, I think, the most likely scenario if the storm strengthens quickly.
03:40Because what will happen is a stronger storm will feel more of the upper level pattern.
03:45And the upper level pattern wants to pull this towards the northern Caribbean.
03:49So I think if in the next 48 hours, if this storm really starts to ramp up, then your northern scenario becomes more likely.
03:56It gets pulled to the north late in the weekend, crosses Hispaniola, but really slows down while it does so.
04:01And so we could be dealing with a big time, major, potentially even catastrophic flooding event if that northern track comes to fruition here.
04:10Because as it moves north, it's likely to stall over Hispaniola.
04:14And those mountains there will act like sponges and it will squeeze out all that water.
04:19And so we could be dealing with a very dangerous situation if that northern scenario happens.
04:24All right, let's talk about the southern scenario that would have us talking about this wave a week from now.
04:31Yeah, this is a scenario that I think would be more likely if the storm stays a little bit weaker.
04:35If the wind shear kind of wins out in the short term and the storm struggles to develop and really gain an inner core,
04:41then it can kind of slip underneath some of those steering currents and end up more in the western Caribbean.
04:47This scenario would allow it to potentially strengthen more, but it would be more in the western Caribbean.
04:53And this is the scenario that could potentially impact the United States in the long term.
04:57I think if the storm is able to get west of Jamaica.
05:01West of 75, yeah.
05:03Yeah.
05:0375, I think, yeah.
05:04Jamaica on westward, I think the chances go up of, you know, potentially having, you know, an impact in south Florida.
05:11But if it stays east of Jamaica, I think it's going to be very hard to get any direct U.S. impacts.
05:16You know, and listen, we're far away here, but I think we're starting to feel more and more comfortable.
05:22When we talk about U.S. impacts, it seems very unlikely, very unlikely there'd be any impacts, let's say, from the Florida panhandle toward Texas.
05:32Yeah, I think the scenario of a northern turn seems more likely to me at this time.
05:38We can't rule out the United States, which is why we have to watch this very carefully.
05:42But right now I would tend to favor more of that staying east of Jamaica solution at the current time.
05:48But again, these steering patterns are very weak in this area, so we do have to watch this day by day over the next week.
05:54And again, if we do get U.S. impacts, it would be Florida and the east coast, not the western Gulf.
06:03AccuWeather lead hurricane expert Alex DeSilva, thanks for joining us here.
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