Watching an Area in the Caribbean - Likely Not a Big Concern

October 26, 2022

The NHC's 5-Day Outlook started showing an area of interest in the Caribbean yesterday. As of this morning they give it a 30% chance of development through 5 days. While there's enough uncertainty to keep an eye on this I still don't think it'll be a concern for the Gulf. The one exception at this point is that it looks like there may be an opportunity for a storm in the western Caribbean to track northeast towards the southwestern Florida Peninsula. This is probably an outlier solution but is something to watch.

The GFS and Canadian operational models have been bonkers on this while the Euro and others have been relatively quiet. There is some ensemble support for development from the Euro and the GFS and Canadian ensembles are showing a strong signal (which is expected given what the operational models are showing). That being said there is no clear picture from the models on what might happen. I think the GFS and Canadian models are way overdoing the situation and I tend to side with the Euro on this which shows a really broad low pressure forming in the southern portion of the central to western Caribbean continuing to move west towards Central America from there. This time of year any storm heading north is going to have a hard time unless it finds a hole between the frontal systems that start to move through regularly.

It looks like the severe weather forecast for yesterday was a bit of a bust. So far there have only been two reports of severe weather. A major event wasn't in the forecast but all the same I'd like to see several more reports to say that the forecast verified. Severe weather events can be very difficult to forecast and the folks at the SPC do a great job keeping us safe.

I'll let you know if the situation changes in the Caribbean but for right now I wouldn't be concerned about it.

Enjoy the rest of the week. Expect more rain (if you got any yesterday...) on Saturday and Sunday. So far no severe weather is expected but I wouldn't be surprised to see at least a marginal risk area show up for the coastal areas.

Chris