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Tropical Update, odds of a new tropical storm forming are increasing
- Ethan Clark
- Jun 27, 2024
- 2 min read
🌀 Tropical Update: I have been inundated with questions regarding the tropics, so here are my newest thoughts. On Thursday afternoon, the National Hurricane Center was monitoring two areas for tropical development. Invest 94L, located in the Western Caribbean Sea, has a low chance of development over the next 7 days I am not going to really talk about this system.
Invest 95L, has a high chance 80% of development over the next 7 days. All interest has been on this Cabo Verde system, a tropical wave located several hundred miles west southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands; it is producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms, but some organization is ongoing, and this system is likely to become a Tropical Storm this weekend as it approaches the Windward Islands. Folks with interests in the Lesser Antilles should monitor the progress of this system; some models bring it to hurricane status early next week.
Models are pretty aggressive in developing this wave. First, it is rather unusual to already see Tropical waves this early in June. The Main Development Region of the Atlantic Ocean runs from Africa to the Caribbean Islands and is an area where the majority of tropical cyclones form. This area is notorious for producing major hurricanes; Hurricane Fran, Floyd, Florence, Hazel, Hugo, Irene, and many more all came from this area.
The system will slowly move into the Caribbean Sea next week. Conditions are usually pretty unfavorable for Hurricanes across what is known as the graveyard of the Caribbean Sea this time of year. What happens beyond 5-7 days remains to be seen. Most models take it deep into the Caribbean Sea before taking it either south towards Mexico or the Gulf of Mexico or maybe turning it north. It is way too soon to speculate on any potential US Mainland impacts; if any, this system could very well fall apart or never ever get close; as you can see in image two, it takes over 10-12 days to reach the US mainland from where this system is located right now.
As of now, models show a strong ridge of High Pressure that would ideally keep this system away from NC, but we can't write it off 10 days away when the system has not even developed, and we don't have recon data yet. Nothing to worry about here in NC right now; if you have plans that take you into the Caribbean, you should follow the progress of this system closely. I'll keep you updated like normal, but no reason to panic, and please don't fall for hype. Technology has not come far enough to tell us where a Hurricane will go in 10 days.
-Ethan
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