Tropical activity picking up in the Atlantic

There are now 4 separate areas of tropical concern from the west coast of Africa to the Gulf of Mexico.

Transcript

00:00Let's take a look at the scorecard, if you will, just statistically to see how we're doing with

00:04tropical storms and hurricanes here. We certainly want to avoid any disruption and trouble,

00:09but we're concerned about the overall pattern and the fact that the Atlantic and Gulf and

00:13Caribbean are so warm. We've had five named storms so far. We are actually maybe a smidge

00:18behind the average pace. Typically, our fifth named storm would form on August 22nd, and now

00:23we're a full week past that, where we begin to see that more frenzied pace pick up. Next week,

00:28we're likely going to see the pace pick up. We've had three hurricanes so far, and in this case,

00:33we're actually a smidge earlier than average. We've already had three. Typically, our third

00:38forms, at least the mean date for that, would be September 7th. We've had one major hurricane. That

00:42was Debbie. Debbie was a powerhouse, and on average, our first major hurricane becomes a

00:46major hurricane on September 1st. Let's take a look at the big picture out there, and we have

00:51several tropical waves that we're watching. These are getting a little more robust, a little

00:54stronger. We're highlighting this one in orange. It's a moderate chance, a medium chance of

00:58development. There's also a zone here of weak, low pressure that's going to kind of meander around

01:03parts of the southeast coast over the next week, and Damian is going to tell us about this tropical

01:08rainstorm that's causing trouble right now in areas off of the Gulf Coast of the U.S. So,

01:14four separate zones of concern, but Tuesday through Thursday of this next week, we're

01:19expecting to see at least a medium chance of development for one of these waves that is

01:24stronger and more robust than what we've seen in the past two weeks. So, limited organization is

01:29likely over the next few days here into early next week. Still some dry air, still some wind shear,

01:33and keep it in check, but development is more likely as this moves into areas around the

01:38Caribbean, and the whole ribbon of basically the tropical systems that will, the tropical waves

01:45will be traveling over the next week will be more humid than it was, and we'll be seeing a better

01:51chance for some localized flooding in the islands. There's always the risk of mudslides when this

01:55sort of thing happens, and also some rough surf. So, we'll be watching as this tropical wave moves

02:00into the Caribbean, and here's just one model depiction. Slow development initially, but then

02:03it really begins to organize. Look for these little wind pixels to organize around a center

02:08of circulation, and it's conceivable that we might have a named storm entering the Gulf in

02:12seven to ten or twelve days.