Tropical Storm Jerry?

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) is monitoring a Tropical Depression in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean poised to become Tropical Storm Jerry.

This is just one of four areas NHC is watching. They include from left to right:

• Depression Imelda over Texas. It was quickly upgraded Tuesday at 1:00 pm Eastern time, and by 1:30 pm it had made landfall near Freeport, Texas. It has since weakened but it's expected to drop over a foot of rain in some spots and that could lead to flooding.
• Hurricane Humberto aiming for Bermuda is now a major system category three. A hurricane warning is already in place for Bermuda. It could come close to the island on Wednesday.
• Tropical Depression #10 - More info below
• Tropical Wave off the West Coast of Africa, has a 20% chance for development

Tropical Depression #10

 

NHC classified this area of clouds and rain as Depression #10 on Tuesday after they said it looked slightly better organized, with more developing thunderstorms, moving over warm waters and with little shear. It has the potential to grow stronger. A recon mission is planned for Thursday.

Forecast Cone

The official cone from NHC, has high pressure pushing it northwest and becoming Tropical Storm Jerry early Wednesday morning.It is then expected to reach hurricane status by Friday, very close to the Leeward Islands. It will then continue its northwesterly track staying very close to Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Turks & Caicos, and Southeastern Bahamas. All these areas need to monitor the system. The cone is also reflecting a more gradual turn to the NW once in the Western Atlantic.

Models

The forecast cone is based on an average of all the models, but in this case, the track is not a unanimous consent. The models are split with just about half turning the system away from land areas by the weekend and the rest staying the course. As of this update, NHC is keeping the cone on a Northwesterly track,

Optimism

Something else we look at, are the features surrounding the system. One of those is called shear, or very strong upper winds that help cut down the tops of developing thunderstorms inside the system. This can weaken it or destroy it all together.

It appears that over the weekend very strong shear comes out of the Eastern Seaboard and meets this tropical system head on. It could completely veer it away or debilitate it tremendously. We'll be watching.