Tropical Storm Melissa: The tropical disturbance that was once Invest 98-L has become organized enough today to be considered a tropical storm. Because of this, the National Hurricane Center has upgraded Invest 98-L to Tropical Storm Melissa.
Melissa has an organized deep convection and a well-defined low-level center with 50 mph maximum winds and central barometric pressure of 1003 millibars. Currently, Melissa is headed on a westerly course at a fairly quick pace. It is likely that Melissa will slow way down in forward speed and should put the brakes on as it reaches the area to the southeast of Jamaica in the next day or two.
There are all sorts of possibilities when it comes to where Melissa might end up tracking and how strong it might become. The reason for this is because the storm is expected to get caught in a weak steering environment & may await to be picked up the next weather system. The question becomes which weather system might pick Melissa up and send it northward out of the Caribbean.
The first opportunity for Melissa to be picked up comes on Thursday and Friday when an upper level trough of low pressure will pass to the north of the storm. This is the weather system that the GFS model has been insisting that Melissa will be picked up by. I do think that the GFS model is very wrong in its forecast as it forecasts Melissa to strengthen significantly over the next couple leading it to be picked up by this upper level trough. Instead, I think that we’ll probably see Melissa slowly strengthen & because of this, I do think that the upper level trough will miss Melissa & leave it milling around in the central Caribbean for at least the next 7 days. This means that I think that we will be tracking Melissa for at least the next 7-10 days!!
My Thoughts Are That I think that its going to take a rather strong upper level trough to pull Melissa northward out of the Caribbean & this may not occur until later next week. Because of this, the ceiling is very high for Melissa to strengthen significantly & potentially become a pretty strong hurricane in the northwestern Caribbean towards later this weekend & during next week.
This means that there may be quite a bit in the way of impacts for the islands of the central and northwestern Caribbean from Melissa, both in terms of heavy rainfall & also in the way of winds, depending on the track. This includes Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba and the Cayman Islands. Eventually, the Bahamas may also be significantly impacted by Melissa towards the middle and later parts of next week.
Another item of concern down the road is that the longer Melissa hangs around the western Caribbean, the bigger the impact it could have on the weather in the western North Atlantic & along parts of the East Coast of the United States. The reason for this is due to the fact that a rather strong upper level trough is expected to push through the Eastern United States near Halloween. It’s possible that Melissa could get entangled in this upper level trough leading to the potential for a significant storm near the Eastern Seaboard that brings heavy rain & strong winds around Halloween. It’s something to definitely watch.
Bottom Line Is That for those of you in the central and western Caribbean, this is going to be a marathon & not a sprint when tracking Melissa as it is likely to hang around for quite a while.
Model Track Forecast:
Satellite Imagery:
The next tropical weather discussion will be issued on Wednesday.