Watching Two Areas for Possible Development Early Next Week
Neither area poses an immediate concern for South Florida
As we begin next week, we’ll be watching two areas for possible tropical development in the Atlantic – one closer to the U.S. and one still several days from reaching the Caribbean islands. Neither pose an immediate threat to South Florida.
Both traditional and microwave satellite this morning indicate the disturbance we’ve been tracking in the eastern Atlantic – designated Invest 94L by the National Hurricane Center – remains disorganized. Though we find a subtle turning of winds on the southeastern edge of more concentrated thunderstorm activity, 94L is still in its formative stages.
The environment ahead for 94L is expected to be unseasonably conducive to development, with very low wind shear, warmer than average ocean waters, and an ample supply of moisture to south of the dry Saharan Air Layer. These factors should favor gradual organization as the disturbance plods westward this weekend. 94L is moving at a fairly quick clip for a system in the deep tropics – at around 18 to 20 mph – a factor that could pull back the reins some on its rate of organization over the next few days.
The steering setup is fairly straightforward, giving us high confidence in where 94L will be headed this week. A blocking ridge of high pressure sprawled to its north, with clockwise steering on the south side of this high pressure, will guide the disturbance toward the Windward Islands – the southernmost islands along the Lesser Antilles arc in the eastern Caribbean – by next Tuesday into Wednesday. Before reaching the islands, the system may organize into either Tropical Depression Two or Tropical Storm Bonnie.
The system will continue westward along the northern edge of South America and well south of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to close out the week.
Although it’s too early to speculate whether high pressure steering will weaken by next weekend, longer-range models for now show it holding on, which would keep the system moving westward and toward Central America. There’s still plenty of time to watch this in the coming days.
Elsewhere in the Atlantic, low pressure along a stalled-out front will drift southward from Alabama and into the northern Gulf of Mexico by early next week, where upper-level winds may be conducive for a brief tropical spin-up. The National Hurricane Center is giving this area a 20 percent chance of development. Regardless, for South Florida, the low pressure will continue westward toward the Texas coast and away from us.