Tracking the Tropical Wave in the Eastern Atlantic
Tracking the Tropical Wave in the Eastern Atlantic
No concern here or elsewhere for South Florida this week
Across the mostly barren Atlantic of recent weeks, a vigorous tropical wave – a ripple in the lower winds of the atmosphere triggering disorganized showers and thunderstorms – moving through the eastern Atlantic is garnering the attention of hurricane forecasters. These disturbances, which move off the coast of Africa every three to five days, typically lose their punch upon rolling into the Atlantic, but so far, the system is largely maintaining its broad area of weather.
In the short term, the disturbance will be getting a boost from an umbilical cord of background spin and juicy tropical air within the monsoon trough south of the Cabo Verde islands. Upper-level winds ahead appear light, so at least for the next few days, the overall environment will be conducive to slow organization as it moves toward the west-northwest over the open Atlantic.
By this weekend, as the system tracks toward the northernmost Leeward Islands of the northeastern Caribbean, it will battle increasingly strong upper-level winds which should impede development trends. Its track toward the islands will depend not only on where (and if) an organized, tropical system forms, but how much development we see in the coming days. A weaker system will generally track farther south and closer to the islands, similar to the European ECMWF model depiction, but a more organized system would stay farther north and away from the islands similar to the American GFS solution. Regardless, the disturbance is still nearly a full week out from its closest approach to the easternmost islands, so we have plenty of time to follow the trends.
For us in South Florida, we can rest easy for the time being, as there’s no concern here or elsewhere in the tropics this week.