ORLANDO, Fla. – Blink and you’ll miss it. We swapped Tropical Storm Jerry for Lorenzo a couple of days ago.
Jerry came to an abrupt end after battling vertical wind shear, helping to tear down what thunderstorms the low pressure could develop.
As a result, the National Hurricane Center decided it was time to let it go.
The final advisory came toward the end of last week, and a new tropical wave organized into our 12th named storm, Lorenzo. Thankfully, this is another system slated to head north and out to sea.
It does do a fun loop-da-loop towards the end of the forecast, and that’s important. Not for the reasons you’re initially thinking. I’ll tell you why.
We’ve had a pretty strong Nor’easter system working its way up the east coast of the U.S.
It brought high winds and a lot of water to many coastal locations before finally turning out to sea and ramming into Atlantic Canada.
This is going to drag the trough and surface high pressure responsible for our glorious weather further south and east. We’re actually anticipating a reinforcing dose of drier and somewhat cooler air into Central Florida because of this.
It’s also going to cause a lot of disruptions in the upper air pattern, where the jet stream can be found.
This rapid fluctuation of temperatures will help to nudge our jet stream further eastward, extending the trough over the Eastern U.S. out into the Western Atlantic, and bullying our once dominant subtropical high down towards the southeast corner of the tropics.
That’s what’s going to cause Lorenzo to ride your favorite Orlando roller coaster and turn upside down before heading back toward the west.
It is also going to keep another rather healthy tropical wave that just splashed down off the coast of Africa on Monday, on a westerly trajectory.
At this point in the hurricane season, October headed for Halloween and then into November, we’re typically awaiting the closure of the African coast. This means no more tropical waves to really watch for development.
They also tend to come off Africa weaker, since the monsoon setup responsible for generating these chunks of energy is also weakening as a result of the Northern Hemisphere fall.
But that doesn’t mean they disappear altogether. This one is forecast to head towards the Lesser Antilles, and computer models are all latching on to the idea that it may get going once it’s south of Hispaniola or closer to Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.
This changes the pace of the entire hurricane season. To date, we’ve seen all storms pretty much hit the Atlantic and bounce out north into open water. We’ve yet to see anything in the Caribbean, let alone the Gulf.
We take a wave and develop it in the Caribbean, and that’s a whole new ball game.
Ensembles and global computer models suggest there’s a chance it goes on to become a tropical storm. This would be our M-named storm, Melissa. We’ve got LOTS of time to continue to monitor this signal, which is exactly what I intend to do for all of you.
I simply ask that we keep at least one half-open eye on this. Just because we’ve yet to see a landlocked tropical feature this hurricane season. Based on comments and posts I’m seeing on social media, a lot of us have completely turned ourselves off to the hurricane season.
But 2024 taught a valuable lesson: sometimes the true heavy hitters wait till the very tail end of a season to make their presence known. So just to be on the safe side, let’s keep up with this one together, shall we?