Tropical Development Possible in the Caribbean

September 19, 2022

Well that didn't take long... The National Hurricane Center is watching a tropical wave located east of the Windward Islands for development as it moves west this week. Currently they are indicating a 20% chance of development through 5 days. Computer models started picking up on this yesterday with consensus growing since then. The GFS is very quick to develop this wave with a bona fide storm forming before reaching the islands later this week while the Euro and Canadian models don't show development until it's in the Western Caribbean early to mid next week. With the three respective ensembles for these models in good agreement that this wave will develop as well I think there is a pretty good chance we'll see something come of this. It's really too early to speak of the storm's track but this could end up being a threat to the Gulf as it moves north out of the Caribbean with potential tracks ranging from the northern Gulf Coast to more to the east across Cuba and the Bahamas and also with a few tracks going towards the western Gulf. Once Fiona moves out of the picture a high pressure will develop in the Atlantic that will keep this wave/storm moving west or west-northwest through the weekend or longer. It looks like the timing of a series of troughs (think fronts) around the end of the month will largely determine the final track north. In the short term there's not a lot to inhibit strengthening once/if a storm forms but any troughs present near the point of landfall could impart wind shear that limits strengthening later or causes some weakening prior to landfall. Again it's still too early to be specific about all of this but that is the general idea how things may play out.

Tropical Wave of Interest Circled in Green

More to come on this later this week. It'll be the end of month or early October before this is a concern so we have plenty of time to watch it. That being said it may not be until early next week until we start having a good idea how this will ultimately evolve.

Have a good week.

Chris