I thought that title might get your attention.  What am I talking about, there aren’t even any “Code Yellow” areas out there in the tropics today?   That’s true, but the NHC only identifies potential threats over the next 24-48 hours, not in the long range.  What I see in the western Caribbean today reminds me of the conditions that I witnessed prior to the formation of past late-season hurricanes.   The first really strong cold front of the season has made it all the way to the western Caribbean. A tropical wave interacting with the cold front is helping to enhance thunderstorm activity in the region.  Wind shear in the southwest Caribbean is low, and oceanic heat content is quite high.  Basically, all the ingredients for hurricane development are coming into place now.  But will something develop?

Let’s look at what some of our favorite computer models are predicting.   The American GFS model was probably first to sniff “something” out.  But it’s hard to give credit to a model that sees “something” developing in the long range on almost every run, four times a day.  Recently, the European model has picked up on possible development in the southwest Caribbean this coming weekend.  That’s what has me more concerned.  Oh, the Canadian model also predicts development, but it predicts just about everything in the tropics to develop year-round, so I don’t pay much attention to it.   First, let’s look at the current American GFS model.

The map above is a GFS forecast for next Monday morning, October 26th.  It shows a tropical cyclone (hurricane?) in the southwest Caribbean Sea just off the coast of Nicaragua.  Note the big high pressure area to its north.  With high pressure to the north and clockwise flow around the high, the storm would have to track to the west and move inland into Nicaragua.  Bad for Central America, not so bad for Florida.   Problem is, the European model has another idea as to where this potential tropical cyclone would track, as demonstrated by the map below.

Quite a difference!   That “blocking” high pressure is over Texas, not the southeast U.S.  And with high pressure also east of Bermuda, there’s a clear path for anything developing in the southwest Caribbean to track straight north toward Florida.  We’ve seen such paths before on many occasions in mid to late October.  Remember Michelle in 2001?  Or maybe Wilma in 2005?  Both started out in the southwest Caribbean, were slow to move at first, then accelerated north then northeast across or very near south Florida.  What about beyond next Monday?  The European model goes out to 10 days.   I went to the ECMWF home page (http://www.ecmwf.int/) and made the loop below.   Note that if you look at the last map, you can see an approaching cold front over the central U.S.   Question is, will it get to the east coast before this possible hurricane passes Florida?

That’s a scary track if you happen to live in western Cuba, Florida, or along the East U.S. Coast.  What’s even scarier is that this potential hurricane will be tracking over the one region in the Atlantic Basin that has the greatest heat potential.  Hurricanes need lots of deep warm water to intensify (among other things).  This system could track right across some very warm water, as indicated in the latest oceanic heat potential graphic, below.

Of course, the big question is whether or not this area of thunderstorms will actually be able to get its act together and develop into a tropical cyclone.    The NHC is not mentioning the disturbance in their outlooks, which means they see little chance of development within the next 48 hours.  But the models don’t really develop this disturbance for another 72-96 hours at the earliest.   I think that I might give this system a 30-40% chance of developing into a tropical storm or hurricane in the long range (by this weekend).    As for where it might track, I’m certainly not confident in either the GFS or the European’s track.  However, I have noticed that the European model has tended to do better with the overall pattern in the 5-10 day time frame than the GFS.  If that’s the case, then any developing storm in the southwest Caribbean could well take a northward track that might threaten Florida.  I’d pick such a track as being more likely than a westerly track into Nicaragua at this point.

It’ll be interesting to see how this turns out later this week.  I’ll make another post or two as things develop (or don’t develop).   If you live in Florida, don’t stow away your hurricane survival kits just yet.

 Comment on this post

 Print this post

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.