There are still two areas being watched by the NHC, Invest 97L in the Caribbean and Invest 98L farther to the east with a third area off the coast of Africa that needs to be watched over the next few days. I'm not going to spend any time on the yellow area today. You can see these and their potential paths on the 2-Day and 5-Day outlook maps below. As of right now, the good news is that there doesn't seem to be a consensus that there will be a major impact from either 97L or 98L. That doesn't mean that there won't be, but it is not like we've seen in the past for some storms where the models are locked in on them being a serious threat. So for now we're still in the mode of watching and waiting for the forecast to consolidate. Don't be concerned yet, but don't let your guard down.
To give you an idea where 97L and 98L may track and how they may strengthen, let's look at some of the model plots starting with 97L.
97L tracks:
97L intensity:
98L tracks:
There are additional model solutions than what I've shown above so keep in mind these are not the full range of possibilities nor are they a forecast.
97L is struggling to develop and it doesn't look like it has highly favorable conditions ahead of it for the near term. I think it is fairly certain that 97L will enter the Gulf late this weekend, but there is a huge spread on where it may go after that and I don't think the Gulf will be the most favorable for development. The consensus from the intensity guidance is for a tropical storm at the most at least for the near term. It sounds like a stronger storm may track more to the east and a weaker storm more to the west. That being said we're talking about 4+ days from now so we're at the limit of reliability for the models and the models haven't been doing well this year. I didn't show the GFS or GEPS (Canadian) tracks for 97L because they're not that much different than the other group of tracks.
98L is looking fairly healthy and it is expected to slowly strengthen as it approaches the islands. What happens after that is uncertain and depends on its track, which you can see has a large spread as well. I'm also showing the GFS and GEPS (Canadian) model ensemble tracks because the other group seems to show a track in the Gulf and I want you to see that is far from certain. The intensity guidance is a little stronger and it is more likely we'll see this become a hurricane over the short term. In a general sense, a stronger storm in the near term would favor a more easterly track. That doesn't rule out a weaker storm initially that stays more on a westerly course and then strengthens later, it is just too far out to know at this time.
So we continue to watch and wait. Again, at least we're not staring down a couple of monster storms in the models at this point but we need to be prepared to see what happens when the forecast consolidates over the next several days.
Have a great rest of the week.
Chris
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