Early Alert continues to monitor shower and thunderstorm activity associated with a small area of low pressure located just north of the Mona Passage between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. As of 5 pm EDT, an Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft is continuing to investigate the area of disturbed weather. Aircraft report indicate that the system is producing winds of tropical storm force over the open waters north of those islands, although the aircraft data and surface observations indicate that the system still lacks a well-defined surface circulation. Given the lack of a well-defined surface circulation, tropical cyclone advisories are not being initiated by NHC at this time. The overall organization of the showers and thunderstorms has been increasing today, but the proximity of the system to Hispaniola could limit development tonight. Conditions for development are expected to be more conducive when the disturbance moves near or over the southeastern Bahamas on Saturday. Gusty winds and heavy rains are expected across Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands tonight, and over portions of Hispaniola and the southeastern and central Bahamas tonight and Saturday. Interests in the southeastern and central Bahamas should monitor the progress of this disturbance, since tropical storm watches or warnings could be required with little advance notice. The latest global model runs continue to call for the developing cyclone to move along or just off the northern coast of Hispaniola overnight, and then slow its forward movement on Saturday as it moves into the lower Bahamas. Once in this region the system should be able to organize and attain tropical storm intensity in 24-36 hours. With the sub-tropical ridge over the SW Atlantic still forecast to weaken in vicinity of the Bahamas by early Sunday, the system should see it’s forward movement slow even further as it begins to turn northwestward and then northward by late Sunday or by Monday. While there continues to be significant uncertainty on this development, the fairly good continuity among the more reliable models on both the track and intensity forecasts suggests reasonably good confidence that the cyclone will turn northward and ultimately take a track that takes the system out to sea without serious impact to the US mainland next week. As with any tropical system still in the formative stages the ultimate track and intensity remains uncertain. Probabilities for Invest 96L have been upped to in 48 hours and remains the same at 5 days. * Formation chance through 48 hours...high...70 percent. * Formation chance through 5 days...high...80 percent. The NHC “Experimental 5-Day Graphical Tropical Weather Outlook” now depicts potential tracks of 96L across the eastern Bahamas then northward between the U.S. and Bermuda. As discussed earlier, given that a tropical cyclone has not yet developed there is considerable uncertainty in this outlook. Elsewhere across the Tropical Atlantic… There is another large scale easterly wave - but with little convection - approaching the central Atlantic along 35W, and a somewhat stronger system about to emerge off the west African coast. However, no significant development of either wave is expected during the next 5 or more days.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 21:45:37 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015