It appears that a tropical cyclone will likely be forming in the coming days in the Caribbean within the Atlantic Hurricane Basin. In today’s Tropical Outlook, the National Hurricane Center (NHC), based in Miami, Florida, is reporting that there are two areas of concern they are tracking. Between the two, an area of disturbed weather in the Caribbean is creating the most concern.
A broad area of low pressure over the eastern Caribbean Sea continues to produce a large area of disorganized showers and thunderstorms extending from the Windward Islands west-northwestward for several hundred miles. According to the NHC, environmental conditions are forecast to be conducive for gradual development over the next few days, and a tropical depression is likely to form this weekend or early next week while the disturbance moves slowly westward or west-northwestward over the central Caribbean Sea.
Even if the system doesn’t become a tropical depression or even a tropical storm, locally heavy rainfall is possible over portions of the Lesser Antilles, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico through this weekend.
The NHC believes there is a high chance that development will occur over the next 5 days, saying there’s a 70% chance of tropical cyclone formation during that period.
The NHC is also tracking another system not far from Bermuda. Satellite data indicate that a well-defined low pressure area located about 150 miles west-southwest of Bermuda is currently producing a limited amount of shower and thunderstorm activity According to the NHC, environmental conditions are forecast to remain only marginally conducive, and any additional development should be slow to occur over the next day or so. By late Saturday, upper-level winds are forecast to become even less favorable, and the low is expected to begin interacting with an approaching frontal system. For now, the NHC believes there’s a low 20% chance that a tropical cyclone will form here over the next five days.
The Atlantic Hurricane Season continues through to the end of November.
