Good morning! Active weather continues in the tropics with Igor, Julia, and a strong tropical wave all drawing interest in the Atlantic. Igor remains a powerful Category 4 hurricane with wind at 150 mph; Igor very well could become the Atlantic's first Category 5 storm since Hurricane Felix in 2007. Igor has a period of about 2 or 3 days to remain this powerful before it begins to feel the effects of some enhanced wind shear farther to its northwest. While the track of Igor has shifted somewhat to the west, Igor is still likely to remain well to the east of the Mid Atlantic and Northeast coast, but should bring high seas and perhaps some gusty wind to the Northeast coast next weekend and early next week. For us, on the back side of Igor, it should be a similar story to Danielle's and Earl's passage to our east -- unusually dry weather.
Julia is a minimal tropical storm near the Cape Verde Islands and, like Igor early in its life, is feeling the effects of enhanced wind shear in the far eastern Atlantic. As Julia moves farther west though, the environment becomes favorable for strengthening and all of our model guidance indicates Julia will become a strong tropical storm/hurricane over the next 2-4 days. Julia, however, will move east of Igor and pass into the open waters of the central Atlantic.
The strong tropical wave to our south has sustained convection over the last several hours and is now showing signs of a developing center of low pressure south of Jamaica late this morning. It is about to move over some of the very warmest/highest heat content waters in the Atlantic basin and, with favorable upper level wind, should be able to develop into a tropical depression or even storm later today or tomorrow morning. With strong high pressure sitting across the Gulf of Mexico and southern tier of the United States, any system that develops in the Caribbean will be forced toward the Yucatan Peninsula and will not affect us in southwest Florida.
Brian
