00:00You and I first highlighted this storm back on the first week in October.
00:05We thought that there would be a tropical wave coming off Africa that could be different
00:09in that it could survive and make its way into the Caribbean.
00:14We haven't had that happen all through this Atlantic season.
00:18Yeah, and now we have, of course.
00:20The wave was pretty robust coming off of Africa.
00:23It was pretty far south, so it was able to avoid a lot of that dusty, dry air and wind shear,
00:28and then it was able to make it into the Caribbean and eventually develop.
00:31So you can see it right here, right now.
00:33A lot of the convection is still off to the eastern side of the storm.
00:36The center actually redeveloped overnight.
00:40The low-level center yesterday afternoon was actually ejected out from underneath the convection
00:45and just went off to the west.
00:47So it actually had to redevelop a new center during the overnight hours.
00:51Now that new center is underneath some of that convection,
00:53although it's on the western side of the convection due to the fact that it's still being sheared.
00:58From the western side.
01:01Now, let's go over the wind shear.
01:03How does this happen?
01:05Let's first talk about the ideal setup pertaining to development in wind shear.
01:11I always like to say that wind shear is kind of like a stack of pancakes.
01:14So essentially, you want your stack of pancakes to stand nice and tall.
01:18Tropical systems are the same way.
01:20They like their thunderstorms to stand nice and tall straight up into the atmosphere.
01:24However, when we add wind shear or a change in wind direction with height as you go up into the atmosphere,
01:28it can kind of make it look a little lopsided or knock over that stack of pancakes.
01:33And so tropical systems, when they're dealing with wind shear,
01:36they tend to struggle to develop a little bit because they're not vertically stacked, as we like to call it.
01:41And wind shear has been a problem in the Atlantic, a saving grace throughout this season.
01:46And even today, when you look at the Caribbean in the Gulf, look at all of the dark purple, you know,
01:53toward Jamaica, Cuba.
01:55There's only an area, and this is something else we've been highlighting,
01:58we said if it is south of 15 degrees north, and that's the line right along the Nicaragua-Honduras border,
02:04there would be less wind shear, and that's where the less wind shear is.
02:08But right now, a lot of the Caribbean has some strong wind shear.
02:11Indeed it does, but I do think it's going to be lessening as we head towards late week and into the weekend,
02:16especially where this storm is going to be moving to.
02:19You can see here, overall, not a whole lot of motion.
02:22I mean, this track goes seven days out.
02:24Look at how much it's moving, just a few hundred miles maybe, you know, from its current location to near Jamaica.
02:30So it's really just going to be meandering around down here,
02:33and I do expect that that wind shear will lift a little bit to the north here as we go towards late week.
02:40And a lot of the strengthening potential is going to depend on how far south this storm stays.
02:45If it hugs more of that northern side of the cone, I think it's going to be a lot weaker in terms of the wind intensity.
02:51But if it stays more on that southern side of the cone, even south of that middle portion of the track,
02:56that's where we could be dealing with a lot more trouble this weekend into early next week
03:00is there's the potential for some explosive development if it remains well south of Jamaica here
03:06because I think that wind shear is going to decrease, move to the north,
03:10and then all the storm has is those warm sea surface temperatures
03:14and nothing really stopping it from potentially taking off.
03:17Right now we have a Category 2 hurricane south of Jamaica early next week,
03:21but there are indications that we could see a much, much more powerful storm if it's remaining south of Jamaica.
03:28All right. The odds of that far right track, that would take it north toward Haiti in Cuba.
03:34That does seem to be more of an outlier, correct?
03:38Yeah. Yesterday we thought that, you know, maybe the storm would go east of Jamaica,
03:42but now things have trended a little bit further to the west.
03:45And I think a lot of that actually has to do with the disorganization of the storm.
03:49Had the storm really taken off yesterday, I think a track more to the north would have been more likely.
03:55But since it stayed a little bit weaker yesterday, everything has been shifted a little more to the west.
04:00That southern or western track is more likely than the far northern track.
04:05Now this is the track that would be very helpful to Jamaica because heavy rain would stay off to the south.
04:11Yeah, it would. So we'll just have to keep watching these trends.
04:15Of course, a track to the south of Jamaica would allow the storm to become stronger.
04:20So that is the concern there.
04:22You know, you might get a little less rain in Haiti and Dominican Republic if the storm takes this track.
04:27But this would allow the probably future hurricane to maybe even become a major hurricane.
04:33So each track has different implications for each and every one of these countries.
04:38All right, let's get to early next week. Storms somewhere around Jamaica.
04:43Maybe it's farther to the west. Maybe it's farther to the east.
04:46But depending on where the storm is located, Tuesday, Wednesday, then we factor in where the next dip in the jet stream is coming in right now.
04:55It seems the way everything is lining up right now.
04:58It's unlikely, not impossible, that we would get this storm coming close to the Keys in south Florida.
05:05Yeah, it seems unlikely.
05:06I think the right-hand track is more likely a track near Jamaica and then across the eastern portion of Cuba.
05:12But the United States still needs to watch this carefully.
05:15The storm's been drifting west, so we could see a little bit of a shift west in the track.
05:20So that's why it's very important to follow the AccuWeather forecast.
Comments