Area to watch in the Caribbean Sea

As of Monday afternoon, the National Hurricane Center (NHC), is watching a disturbance in the southwestern Caribbean Sea.

For the moment, it has very low formation chances, but it should still dump plenty of rain across parts of Central America.

The satellite imagery shows plenty of cloud cover to the southeast of the Yucatan Peninsula and south of Cuba. This is a broad area of low pressure which houses plenty of disorganized pockets of rain. It will continue moving to the west providing big downpours to the area.  

 

The interaction with land should keep this disturbance rather weak. Because of this, NHC is keeping its chances for formation low at 10% thru 48 hours. In the long run, if the disturbance survives and makes it into the Gulf, it has a slightly better chance for development, up to 20%.  This is because it will be free of land friction, the atmosphere is less hostile here, and the Gulf waters are much warmer. If it does organize it should do so in the area highlighted in yellow. Remember that is NOT a forecast cone, just where NHC thinks the disturbance may get its act together.

Most models are not showing this disturbance developing, the only one indicating some organization is the GFS model.

The big bright orange/red areas represent high pressure. Notice both the Atlantic and Pacific will have highs holding firm in 5 days.  The little green spot in the western Gulf of Mexico is a weak tropical system maybe aiming for Texas. This is still very iffy and many things can happen with this disturbance. All we can do for the moment is just monitor its progress.  I'll keep you updated.