Author Archives: Nash Rhodes

“Erin” Expected to Form This Week in the Atlantic

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A robust tropical wave (Invest 97L) will likely develop into a tropical depression or storm within the next few days. The National Hurricane Center now gives it a high 90% chance to develop within the next week.

While there is growing confidence that this system will stay out of the Caribbean Sea, it’s too early to confidently predict where it may go from there.

97L will be battling slightly cooler waters and pockets of Saharan dust over the next few days. By the time it nears the Lesser Antilles, it should move into a more favorable environment for strengthening.

Questions remain regarding the storm’s future strength and upper level steering that would impact its ultimate track. Additionally, weather models will become significantly more reliable after a storm actually forms.

For now, this disturbance is roughly 4,000 miles away from the mainland United States, giving us plenty of time to monitor its progress. “Erin” is the next name up on our storm naming list.

Meanwhile, a struggling Invest 96L (shown in yellow) in the central tropical Atlantic will have a low chance of developing within the next few days. Its formation would be inconsequential to the United States.

Watching Two Spots in the Atlantic

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We are still monitoring two areas of possible development in the Atlantic, although neither look to bring any impacts to Florida. Odds of development have slightly decreased for each of them.

Off the east coast, a weak area of low pressure will have a small chance of developing into a named storm before merging with a front by the end of the weekend. This will be moving away from the US and weather model support for this occurring has gradually decreased over the past few days.

Invest 96L still has a medium (40%) chance of development within the next week.

Dry air has created a hostile environment for it to organize in the short term. This is reflected in today’s satellite imagery of the tropical wave.

There is now high confidence that a weakness in high pressure to its north will help steer this system into the central or west Atlantic next week. That turn would likely keep it far of the coast of the United States.

Next week, our attention will return to the Main Development Region of the Atlantic. Long range forecast models continue to indicate that several more tropical waves will be entering into this region in the middle of August. Nothing pertaining to these waves has been outline by the National Hurricane Center at this time.