Could a tropical storm be about to form in the Caribbean?
Around mid-November, the southern Caribbean could have a new tropical depression, but will it strengthen to the point of a tropical storm? AccuWeather's Bernie Rayno breaks down the chances.
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00:00 Yeah, we've been talking about this area now for about 10 days.
00:05 This is an area that we highlighted for you here on the AccuWeather Network last week
00:09 for an area to watch for tropical development and know what's going on.
00:12 You can see a robust area of showers and thunderstorms.
00:14 And what you look for, besides area of low pressure developing, are the showers and thunderstorms
00:20 consistently there.
00:22 Where you see on the infrared satellite the yellows, the reds, and the oranges, it's been
00:25 pretty consistent.
00:26 So that tells us that this is trying to get a little better organized.
00:29 It's over warm water, you can check that box for development.
00:32 The second box, do we have enough tropical moisture?
00:35 Or let's say, is there an absence of dry air?
00:38 I'm going to say yes for now.
00:40 There is a lot of dry air.
00:42 Where?
00:43 Jamaica, southeast Cuba, toward Hispaniola.
00:45 But where it's located right now, I'll mark it with an X, you don't really even have an
00:49 area of low pressure yet.
00:51 It's in an area where there's abundant moisture, so you've checked that box.
00:54 Here's where I think this system is going to struggle.
00:57 Wind shear.
00:58 Now, when you look at our wind shear product, it is located in an area right now of lower
01:03 wind shear, denoted by the dark or the light purple.
01:07 But boy, just off to the north, you have a lot of wind shear in that dark purple, right?
01:13 And that's not going anywhere.
01:15 In fact, while there is going to be a little window as this moves northward, once this
01:19 system starts to move north and it gets to the latitude of let's say Jamaica, Hispaniola,
01:24 it's really going to encounter a lot of wind shear.
01:27 So while I do believe there's a window, and I think that window is from now until Thursday,
01:31 and I think there is a high likelihood it could become a tropical depression, I'm starting
01:35 to think it will not get to a storm.
01:38 I could see it, but I will say this, the window is from now until Thursday.
01:42 Once you get into Thursday afternoon, as this starts lifting north into that area of not
01:46 only, remember, wind shear but dry air, it should start to weaken.
01:51 Having said that, boy, there's going to be lots of showers and thunderstorms, southeast
01:54 Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and Jamaica, and there could be localized flooding with
01:59 this.
02:00 (door slams)