Good evening! We're watching a couple of areas in the tropics for the possibility of development. One is a tropical wave that is showing signs of flaring back up this evening over the northern Caribbean near Jamaica. There is quite a bit of wind shear, though, located north of this system and down the line this may inhibit development. Either way, this wave will continue to track toward the west-northwest and generally move toward the Yucatan peninsula. With a strong high pressure ridge building across Florida and the Gulf over the next couple of days, this wave won't be of any concern to southwest Florida either way.
Elsewhere in the Atlantic, our models remain insistent on the development of at least one tropical system in the central or eastern Atlantic by this weekend. Earlier this week and last weekend, there was a burst of dry, Saharan air into the eastern Atlantic. This drier air though, indicating by the reds and oranges on the 3rd image, is starting to abate and the atmosphere is generally moistening in the eastern Atlantic. There is a cluster of storms stretching along 10-15 degrees north west of the Cape Verde Islands; it is from this area that some of our models ultimately spin up a system. Right now, there is a large area of positive vorticity (cyclonic -- low pressure -- spin; orange shading on the right hand side of the 4th image), but it's very unfocused. Until one of these clusters of storms becomes dominant, this will likely continue to be the case.
Also, in the short term, wind shear is still a bit too high to allow for significant development -- nearly 20 knots in this area. This is expected to relax though over the coming days. As far as the future track of a tropical cyclone developing in the central or eastern Atlantic, it is simply too early to say at this point. Our models are spraying low pressure all over the map and this will continue to be the case run-to-run until we actually have an area of low pressure to "fix" on. Either way, stay tuned!
Brian
