There's a tropical system brewing in the Caribbean, which could develop into a hurricane. Floridians are urged to monitor this system, which could put the state at risk late next week.
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00:00Alex and I mean the handwritings on the wall the handwriting was on the wall
00:04late last week when we looked at this area that we were going to get another storm and
00:09Certainly when you look at the satellite picture things are our area of thunderstorms is starting to get better organized
00:15Yeah, they certainly are and I was looking at a satellite earlier. That's able to kind of
00:19Take a look at what the wind speeds are doing currently at the surface
00:22And I'm already starting to see signs that there's a bit of a circulation starting to form south of Jamaica right now
00:29Hurricane hunters will be in this thing early this afternoon
00:32So we should get a much better idea of where this Center is starting to
00:36Consolidate and that will certainly help with the forecast here going forward. All right ideal conditions for development
00:43I want to show you this
00:44this is the ocean heat content Gulf of Mexico and also the Caribbean and
00:48Ocean heat content a little different product than just looking at the water temperatures
00:55Yeah, it certainly is the ocean heat content essentially is how deep into the ocean right those warm waters extend now everywhere where you see
01:02Orange and red on this map is where 80 the 80 degree temperature line extends 3 to even 400 feet
01:09down below the surface of
01:11The ocean there and the Western Caribbean has the highest ocean heat content of the entire
01:16Atlantic Basin and that's exactly where we expect this tropical storm and eventual hurricane to develop in
01:23Let's a little take a little x-ray of the atmosphere here a couple of things on the water vapor loop of note
01:27Dry air not anywhere around the center of circulation
01:31Alex as you said, it's broad. There's a lot of moisture in the blue and white, but you see what I see an overall
01:38clockwise
01:39Circulation across the Caribbean. Why is that important?
01:42Yeah
01:43That's important because an area of that's an area of high pressure essentially building over top of whatever is going to be developing and that
01:49Allows the storm to really breathe here and you can see here
01:52This is our wind shear product the light purple indicating areas of very very low wind shear around the Caribbean
01:58You see areas of very high wind shear
02:00But there's a pocket there where we expect this storm to develop very little to no wind shear
02:05And so that's why I think this could develop very very quickly once a center starts getting
02:10Consolidated and you had mentioned to me this yesterday
02:13You were concerned not only of a hurricane that this was going to go to a major
02:16Hurricane by the time we get into the weekend here and major hurricane maximum stain winds of at least a hundred and eleven miles per
02:23Hour. Yeah, I think certainly we'll be dealing with a hurricane by the end of this week
02:26And I think we'll be dealing with a major hurricane at least no later than this weekend here again
02:31All the conditions are coming together for this to rapidly intensify again
02:34We have plenty of moisture low wind shear very very warm water temperatures and ocean heat content
02:39I don't really see a whole lot that could prevent this from really exploding into a major hurricane
02:44I guess the only thing I really see is potential land interaction
02:47The storm could get close to Central America and if it gets close to Central America
02:52It could kind of tangle with the land a little bit there and that could you know
02:55Prevent this from getting really really powerful
02:57But either way I do expect a strong hurricane to be in the Western Caribbean here over the next couple of days
03:02I really quickly here this system kind of meanders around in the Caribbean or in the Northwest Caribbean as we head toward the weekend
03:10And then here's the problem high pressure
03:12We were hoping that high would stay maintained across Florida and drive this away from the United States perhaps moving west
03:19There's nothing that suggests that any longer though that high leaves
03:23Then you have that dip in the jet stream coming in across, Texas, and that is why the windows open for, Florida
03:30Yeah, it certainly is we're expecting a turn to the north sometime
03:34And and you know it's gonna depend how close it gets to land
03:37To see how strong it gets in the Gulf of Mexico if it can avoid land
03:40If it can kind of take more of that eastern side of our cone here
03:44It could avoid a lot of that land and we could be dealing with potentially even a major hurricane in the south in the southern
03:49Gulf of Mexico here now a better case would be if it goes into into land here it kind of disrupts the circulation
03:55But either way I think the residents of Central and South Florida need to watch this very very carefully as we could very well have
04:02A hurricane on their doorstep mid to late next week
04:05Accuweather lead hurricane expert Alex de Silva Alex. Thanks for joining us here on Accuweather early