FLHurricane.com: Tropical Update

http://i.flhurricane.com/images/2009/2096ka0_1.png

Gulf of Mexico, Southeastern United States and Southwest Atlantic

A deep layer low pressure area is currently a spinning along the western Coast of Florida and coupled with a surface frontal system is producing scattered showers and thunderstorms from the Northwest Caribbean to along the US East Coast which includes, Cuba, the Bahamas and Florida Peninsula. This system is estimated to have dropped 2-3 inches across the Southeast United States and even though it is forecast to pull northeast along the Eastern Seaboard, moisture is expected to linger across Florida. Due the slow movement of this trough, the thinks this will linger long enough to dig further south and probably contribute to the northward pull of potential tropical development in the Western Caribbean.

Caribbean

A tropical wave near 58W south of 20N is expected to enter the Eastern Caribbean during the next 24 hrs bringing with it moisture for the islands with the heaviest rains probably where the environment is most unstable over Trinidad, Venezuela and the Windwards. They are expected to get up to 1 inch while others less than an inch. The moisture is expected to spread to further east across the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico later on Sunday and Monday.

The main story remains the broad area of low pressure over the Southwest Caribbean and Eastern pacific, centered on a 1010 mb low just to the west of Costa Rica. Much of the global models continue to forecast this feature to pull north over Central America along a surface trough of low pressure and emerges over the NW Caribbean in 3 days where development occurs under somewhat favorable conditions. While a cause of development is becoming clearer, the forecast motion continues to remain highly uncertain. The deep layer steering is pulling it northeastward due the upper trough and break down of the ridge while the shallow layer steering has a stronger surface ridge and shallower upper trough causing a more westward track. It does not seem we will fully understand where the system will go until it develops but the model consensus is for it to move towards the north, and areas like the Caymans, Jamaica and Cuba could be affected regardless of motion.

Currently, a broad area of disorganize showers continue to produce showers over Central America with places already receiving an inch of rain over the past 24 hrs. Over 3 inches of rain expected over the next week regardless of development across the mentioned areas and Haiti and some places could get over 10 inches by next Saturday if the storm do materialize.

As I mentioned in the previous blog, until we get the surface disturbance in the Northwest Caribbean development remains uncertain (30%) but the situation should and will be monitored since the conditions are there to allow genesis.

Weather456

(Post moved to a more appropriate Forum.)

Edited by Ed Dunham (Sat Jun 06 2009 02:31 PM)