Melissa to wander around, intensify this weekend

AccuWeather

In today's Forecast Feed, AccuWeather's Geoff Cornish breaks down how Tropical Storm Melissa is developing and the wide-ranging impacts it will have, from Jamaica to the U.S. and even Canada.

Transcript

00:00Melissa wandering around, very unorganized, but as we get toward the weekend, we do believe

00:08Melissa will become a hurricane and will become a major hurricane. And that's the story on the

00:13feed. By the way, the feed powered by the AccuWeather.com pro site where you too can be a

00:19pro will be using all of the models. Some of the models, there's so many, there's more models in

00:23the field of meteorology than there's models on the runway in Paris, France. So we can't show

00:29them to you all, but I'll show you some and you can get to see how challenging a forecast this is

00:34straight out to the satellite here today. And you can see this is Melissa right here. Melissa jumped

00:42this morning. Its center of circulation was down here. It jumped a little farther north where you're

00:47seeing this. You see all this red? That's all of the new showers and thunderstorms that have formed.

00:51Now, it may jump again, but it just shows you the chaotic nature of Melissa. The problem with Melissa

01:00is not warm water. We have plenty of that. It's not a lack of moisture. We have plenty of that.

01:05The problem is wind shear. There's just a ton of wind shear right now, and that's why it is yet to

01:11develop. Now, I want to take a look at wind shear here and think about this. It's if you're a big football

01:16fan like me. It's almost like reviewing the tape and you have different angles of the camera and you put

01:21together to get the complete picture. That's what I'm going to do here. I'm going to show you two

01:26different kinds of wind shear products, and you can kind of see how together they tell the story.

01:31Now, since the beginning, I've always said what? That 15 degrees north was the dividing line between

01:38the wind shear and the no wind shear. 15 degrees north is this line right here. It goes through Nicaragua

01:46and Honduras. It's right here. Let me draw it right in here. Okay. Right now, Melissa is located just

01:53north of 15 degrees north. It's heavily sheared. You could see the wind shear on this product. Now,

01:59this is the winds of 200 millibars, so this is about 540,000 feet. It's a little cleaner look at the

02:05wind shear, and you can see how the wind shear is coming in out of the west here. That's why it can't

02:10get organized. So what happens is the center of circulation is on the western side of where you

02:16see all the convection because of the wind shear. Now, I'm going to play this forward. Let's go to

02:21tomorrow evening. We'll continue to watch what this looks like. So what happens is you still have wind

02:27shear, but now instead of the wind shear being right along 15, it's a little closer to 18 degrees

02:32north. That's going to take it right near Jamaica. As I move forward, see, there is the westerly wind.

02:37That's the wind shear. You notice? Now, as we head towards Saturday evening, what happens? Let me go

02:43forward here. Again, the wind shear starts lifting north. Now, the wind shear is way up in here.

02:49So anything down in here, if Melissa stays down here south of 18, it's in lower wind shear, and it

02:56could really strengthen quickly here. Let's go to Sunday. You could see it again. Watch what happens.

03:01Now, the wind shear is way up in here. All right? That's 200 millipart. Let me show you a wind shear

03:08product. We'll show you a different view, and you could see the same. The moral of the story is,

03:12as we go through the weekend, the wind shear lessens from south to north. Let me show you this.

03:17Here's where we are right now. Here's the wind shear. Here's Cuba, Hispaniola. Here's Latin America.

03:24You see all the yellows here that go across Jamaica beginning today. I'm going to play this forward,

03:29and you could see the lifting north of the wind shear Friday evening, Saturday evening. You see

03:34how you're seeing more blues by Sunday evening all in here, and that's where Melissa is heading.

03:43So the moral of the story is wind shear that's been stopping the development is going to lessen

03:50this weekend. And when you look at the track, that's why we do have this forecasted to be a

03:56major hurricane by this weekend. Where's it going to go? There's still some uncertainty. We still—it's

04:04a small chance, but a chance nonetheless that there could be more of a northern track. This is an

04:09outlier. This would keep the storm weaker. It may not even be a hurricane because it gets into that

04:15wind shear quicker and keeps it in wind shear throughout the entire life, which case it may not

04:21even get to a hurricane status. This would be the best case scenario, I think, for everybody.

04:25Maybe not so much for southern Haiti because of the heavy rain. This is the worst case scenario for

04:31strength if it stays farther south and west. If that's the case, this is going to go not only to

04:36a major hurricane, it'll go to a Category 5 hurricane. And then you'd have implications if we're

04:43not only Jamaica—well, maybe not for Jamaica, but certainly in the Cuba. So those are the outliers

04:49right now. What we're thinking is going to happen. We're in between. This is a very bad scenario for

04:56Jamaica. Very bad. This would bring catastrophic flooding and hurricane winds into Jamaica. And

05:04then this would be a very bad storm for Cuba as well. Okay. So the question is, is where is this

05:10going to go? I just want to continue to keep it simple and show you the American model and the

05:16European model here? The American model—and you've been with us—you've seen that the American model

05:21has been a little bit of an outlier, but it still shows what it shows here. This is the American model.

05:27I want you to focus—here we go, Friday morning. So this is tomorrow morning. I want you to focus in

05:32here. This is the American model. Watch what it does. It's never wavered. It says it goes north,

05:38and it's not a strong system, but it stalls across Hispaniola. This would be a disaster for

05:44Hispaniola. Not because of wind, but the rain. That's the northern track that I just showed you.

05:50You see that? And then it pulls away. Here's the European. This is the worst-case scenario. Watch

05:57what it does. Look at the reds. Go right toward Jamaica. This is Saturday, Sunday, and then Monday,

06:04Monday night, and then Tuesday. That's the worst-case scenario for Jamaica. Not saying it's going to

06:10happen, but I want you to give you the options. One other thing I want to show you—a lot of people

06:15are asking, can this get to the United States? I want to show you the way it gets to the United

06:20States. This is the Canadian model. Watch this. Watch this. See as we go forward here? Watch the

06:27Canadian. Farther south and west, a huge storm, and then here's the key. The dip in the jet stream,

06:32instead of here, it's way back here. What does that do? Brings it close to Florida,

06:37Tuesday into Wednesday. Is that going to happen? Right now, we don't think so. On the feed,

06:44we think the more likely track is toward Jamaica and Cuba, but we cannot roll out Florida yet.

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