Melissa expected to strengthen into a hurricane

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Lead Hurricane Expert Alex DaSilva appeared live on the AccuWeather Network to share the latest updates on Tropical Storm Melissa and if it could impact the United States.

Transcript

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.

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