Thursday, June 2, 2011

Caribbean Rain

Living in South Florida we all have family or know of someone who lives in the Caribbean. The weather pattern developing over that area will be a worry for the folks who live in the region.

Over the last few days we've been following two areas of disturbed weather, now one, could turn out to be a trouble maker for the islands.

On the sat image above, there is a huge blob of clouds and rain over the Central Caribbean Sea. It is trapped there by strong upper level winds to the northwest and a surface high to the east. Because it is moving so slow it will continue to soak up heat energy from the warm Caribbean waters as well as plenty of moisture.

This broad area of low pressure will send heavy rain to Jamaica, Eastern Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico in the days ahead. The heavy rain could lead to flooding, land and mudslides across many regions still reeling from last year's devastating tropical downpours.

The same features that are trapping the low are also keeping it in check and not allowing it to grow. It could be a different story once the high and the strong winds ease up. The low will then have a chance to pick up strength and maybe reach depression status early next week.

Will it still be close to the islands? Too early to tell. We'll just have to watch it, regardless, this low will cause allot of headaches for our neighbors to the south.

Closer to home, another low pressure area moved over Central Florida on Wednesday, dumping some beneficial rain for them. That is exactly what the state needed as we are in a severe drought. We should be so lucky if we were to get a good tropical soaking without the worries of a depression or tropical storm.

Right now the area is over the Gulf of Mexico pushing west with a near zero percent chance for growth. We hope it will remain this low.

If you like cool satellite pictures as much as I do, check out this link from NASA showing the low as it developed near the Carolinas, went through Central Florida and now rests in the Gulf.

http://goes.gsfc.nasa.gov/goescolor/goeseast/hurricane2/movie/latest_sml.mov



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