Tropical Trouble Close to Home?

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has upped the chances for development for a disturbance in the Caribbean from 20% to 40% as of 8 pm Monday night.

NHC now says it is a broad area of low pressure dumping plenty of rain across Cuba, the Caribbean Sea, and the Caymans. Models show some of that rain moving in our direction in the days ahead.

From the satellite picture above one can see very few clouds where the low is situated, a couple of hundred miles East of Belize. Most of the clouds extend in a tail across Western Cuba north into South Florida. Monday saw heavy rain across the Lower Keys with totals as much as 3 inches. Conditions are not conducive for any development now, but that may change in the days ahead.

The low should get pushed into the Gulf in about 48 hours and by then atmospheric conditions will become favorable for gradual development of a subtropical or tropical system. Even if nothing forms, there is so much moisture near us, that we could get another soaking thru the Holiday Weekend. We are hoping this area of rain falls apart.

Models

NHC has deemed this "Invest 90L". Which means this is an area that needs to be INVESTigated further, 90 is a tracking number, and "L" stands for Atlantic Basin. We have two models to look at. We begin with the European

 

This scenario shows system organizing early Friday morning in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, and then aiming for the Louisiana-Pensacola area. It places heavy rain over us.

The American model

In this scenario, a system develops much later in the time-line, by Saturday,  but it aims for the Keys, South Florida, & maybe the Bahamas. It too pushes heavy rain our way.

The bottom line is that Cuba, South Florida, and the Bahamas could see copious amounts of rain from Wednesday thru the Holiday weekend.  Please monitor the situation. The ground is near saturation in many areas and drenched in others.