ORLANDO, Fla. – It’s the peak of hurricane season, and we have one named storm on the board - albeit it is struggling for the time being.
The National Hurricane Center still anticipates Tropical Storm Gabrielle will become our next hurricane, but it has a lot to battle with before it has the opportunity to really flourish.
We had two tropical waves behind Gabrielle, one of which was highlighted for the last couple of days as an area of interest. That has since been cleared from the NHC. Why is that?
There’s more to it than meets the eye.
[TROPICS WATCH: Gabrielle struggles; other areas to monitor]
While NHC has completely removed this tropical wave from their charts, it doesn’t mean we should take our eyes off it. The context simply suggests, the NHC is not anticipating any development within the next seven days.
However — and that’s a pretty large “however” — as this gets inside the Caribbean over the next five days and continues toward the west, computer model guidance is finally waking up to some improving conditions at all levels of our environment toward the west Caribbean and the lower Gulf.
As a result, there are long-range ensembles showing us a signal for a developer that could maybe try to escape into the Gulf.
This is approximately 10-12 days from now. The chance at seeing something start to spin could occur as early as nine days from now, which is still a long ways out and a lot can change.
The primary reason I bring this up, we’re in the peak of hurricane season. We naturally have a majority of our background variables we look at working for tropical waves versus against.
The Madden Julian Oscillation is coming across to help juice up the atmosphere some. We should see continued increase in moisture across the basin, especially in the tropics. Looking at how much moisture we’re seeing pumped into our area in Central Florida suggests that the passage of this phenomena is already underway.
With an increase in moisture, we generally see more instability. This allows for more lift from the surface toward the higher levels of our atmosphere. The higher we can lift moisture, the greater chance we see clouds, rain, storms and inevitably some low pressure.
If a tropical wave wanders into this favorable region, it too could get a little nudge in the vertical velocity department.
While it’s way too early to start pinpointing potential landfall sites, I always break it down to my viewers like so: If you take a storm and develop it in the Deep Atlantic, like Gabrielle, and move it west then northward, it has at least a 60-70% chance of missing any land or anyone in its way.
If you develop a storm in a spot like the Caribbean, or especially the Gulf, and move it in the exact same direction at the exact same angle, no matter what the case may be, someone is going to receive that storm.
So anytime I start to see a signal for development, even if it be a whisper, I keep my eye on it. I thought it best fit to let you all aware as well given the ingredients are in place for a tropical storm to try and flare up if it survives its trip through the east and central Caribbean Sea.