Gyre could jumpstart activity in the tropics

AccuWeather

AccuWeather hurricane expert Alex DaSilva was live on the AccuWeather Network on May 7 to discuss the potential for preseason development in the tropics.

Transcript

00:00let's take you outside in the grill jamaica what's beautiful here in fact the caribbean is

00:04is really nice right now i mean there's not much in the way of clouds there's not much

00:09any thunderstorms could change as we head into the latter half of next week all right joining

00:15us right now for the first report of the season and unfortunately are you going to see this face

00:21a little more as we continue to go through the summer it is our hurricane expert alex da silva

00:27and alex may you don't think of a development into tropics during the month of may but it does

00:33happen and there are some areas that we concentrate on it that if you're going to get development you're

00:39going to see it in these areas yeah on average we typically get a storm once every two or three

00:44years during the month of may and where do we typically look during the month of may usually

00:48a little bit closer to home we usually don't look out towards africa a little bit closer to home we

00:53look in the western caribbean maybe in the southern um southeastern um gulf of gulf of america and off

00:59the southwest coast of the um of florida there uh for that development to occur um and then you know

01:06and then it usually moves to the north into the east during the month of may so right now where the

01:11area that we're going to be tracking it's going to be in the southwestern caribbean here at the end of

01:16next week towards the middle of the month that's where we're really going to be watching for development

01:19yeah we mentioned this that it does happen in may and you and i were both looking at this

01:24this was compiled by jesse farrell when you take a look at the years we've had several years in in

01:31you know from 2014 to 2020 uh it looks as though the last time if i'm reading this right is 2011

01:37so we've not have 2021 i should say we haven't had a may system since 2021 so the law of averages says

01:46alex we're due yeah and certainly we've been we've been really uh you know claiming that this

01:52could be the potential here ever since we released our forecast in march really saying that there

01:57would be the potential for early season or even pre-season development this would fall into the

02:01latter category the water temperature is very warm in the western caribbean and in the gulf as well so

02:06conditions are there for the potential for some development but it's a little different this time

02:12as you mentioned we're not tracking tropical waves that you can see days in advance if it happens

02:18it's homegrown development due to the interaction between the jet stream in the tropics yeah essentially

02:24what you get is you either get a big dip in the jet stream coming south or you get an old decaying

02:28frontal boundary that comes down into the gulf or off the southeast coast stalls and then you get a

02:32little bit of area of spin there so in this case we're watching for a dip in the jet stream to come

02:37down across the southeast in the middle of the month and then it can kind of activate what we call

02:42the gyre and then we call this the central american gyre it's down in central america that dip in the

02:47jet stream kind of initializes some spin and we expect that to happen so we're expecting there's

02:53pretty high confidence in fact that we're expecting an area of showers and thunderstorms to really start

02:57to get going in central america then the question is is anything able to form off of this big broad area

03:05of low pressure well at the very least there right now there's not much of anything but we do expect

03:10the tropical downpours here uh from cuba towards central america and it was the decision was made

03:17yesterday alex to start to highlight this area yeah again this is something we watch throughout the

03:23tropical season especially early and late in the season this gyre to form now it's a broad area of low

03:28pressure but if something forms it could it could pop in the eastern pacific or it could happen in the

03:33southwestern uh caribbean here so it could happen in either basin and again the time frame we're

03:38looking at this would be may 15th through the 22nd right now highlighting a low chance of development

03:43yeah so for those that forget what days we are like me that's late next week or over the upcoming

03:49weekend of course the question is alex impacts on the united states yeah that's the big question

03:54everyone wants to know and i think the chances are very little near zero at the current time

03:58if anything develops down there it's likely to either go west into the eastern pacific or move

04:04northeast over uh cuba and jamaica and then probably out to sea so right now it looks like any threat to

04:10the u.s is very very low at this time and by the way for texas we've never had a land falling storm

04:16during the month of may alex that is correct never a land falling storm and a lot of that actually

04:21has to do with that dip in the jet stream we talked we talked about may we still get those dips in

04:25the jet stream so it's really hard to get a storm to move that far west normally if we get a storm

04:29into the eastern gulf it's turning towards florida all right accuweather lead hurricane expert alex

04:35the silva alex thanks for joining us here on accuweather early

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