Good morning! I wanted to update you quickly on the progress of the Atlantic low I've been watching -- first in the forecast models last week and now on the satellites/radars in real time. The low hasn't changed all that much over the past couple of days except that it has moved a bit to the west and is now making its closed approach to southwest Florida -- a few hundred miles away! Wind shear has eased off to a very favorable sub-10 knots; however, the system is still surrounded by a lot of dry air and this is working against the formation of thunderstorms near the center of circulation. The air isn't as dry as it was a few days ago, but it's dry enough to really be precluding any development.
I've been saying all morning we're in the "now or never" stage for this storm: what that means is that if this is going to develop into a subtropical storm, it's going to have to happen in the next 24 hours or so before it gets kicked to the northeast and moves toward more hostile upper level wind/cooler waters. It still looks very unlikely that there will be development, but the water is fairly warm where the system is drifting and if the atmosphere can moisten enough, it might have a shot. Like I mentioned though, development does seem unlikely now. Either way, the effects on our weather are the same -- isolated mainly inland storms the next 3 days.
Elsewhere, more tropical energy is streaming out of the central Caribbean across eastern Cuba and Hispanolia, ultimately out into the Atlantic. Upper level wind is very strong here and not conducive to tropical development. Farther west, there is a large area of showers and storms located in the eastern Pacific along the coast of Central America. The NHC is giving this a 50% chance of developing into the season's first storm in the Pacific. Many of our forecast models bring some of this energy across Central America and into the western Caribbean late this weekend. We'll be watching that for you but it looks like whatever might develop would also be affected by the strong wind shear located near and just south of Florida.
Brian
