Things are currently quiet across the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico with overall unfavorable environmental conditions, mostly due to strong wind shear, present. At this point, it appears tropical development is not expected for at least the next 7 to 10 days, if not a bit longer.
Beyond this, there continues to be some indications that tropical development could occur in the area around the western Caribbean during the early part of June.
These signs include an upward motion pulse of the Madden Julian Oscillation, which is expected to be located over the Atlantic Basin during the early part of June.
In addition, longer range model guidance such as the GFS ensemble model guidance and the European ensemble model guidance is pointing towards favorable conditions to be in place over the Atlantic Basin during the first two weeks or so of June. I do think that we could very well see an increase in disturbed weather with possible tropical development over the western Caribbean during the early part of June.
One thing to note in the model guidance is that they seem to be hinting at wind shear values to drastically decrease and become favorable for tropical development across the Caribbean. This will be a large transitioning in the weather pattern from one that’s currently unfavorable to one that’s favorable for development.
Additionally, the extended range European model is showing gradually increasing chances for tropical development during early and even mid-June and particularly after June 10 across a large area from the Bay of Campeche through much of the Caribbean and into the central Tropical Atlantic.
Here Are My Thoughts: Given all of the signals in the data, I do think that there is probably about a 20 percent chance that we will see some sort of tropical development occur in the western Caribbean during the first 10 days or so of June.
This system, I think, would probably push into the southern Gulf of Mexico and then perhaps towards the northeastern or eastern Gulf Coast area (Florida Panhandle or Florida Peninsula).
This is something that I’m going to be keeping a close eye on. That said, it’s nothing to be overly concerned about or worried about, for now.
The next tropical weather discussion will be issued on Saturday.