The Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf remains quiet today and it appears that any sort of tropical development will not be a concern throughout this week.
The reason why it is quiet right now is due to an abundant amount of dust pushing across the Atlantic Basin, which is placing a cap on convection. Without any sort of organized areas of convection, tropical development will not happen. Another reason why tropical development is not expected this week is due to very strong amounts of wind shear which is occurring across much of the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf.
It looks as if the upward motion pulse of the Madden Julian Oscillation will not be as strong as previously forecast when it moves into the Caribbean and Gulf. Because of this, it will not have as much of an influence on development chances across the Caribbean and Gulf. Because of this, the chances of tropical development across the Atlantic Basin may remain very low right through next week as well.
That said, there is one area that may need to be watched next week for signs of possible tropical development.
The area that we may need to watch for signs of possible tropical development is in the Bay of Campeche and the southwestern Gulf as a piece of energy from the eastern Pacific is possibly pulled northward into the Bay of Campeche. Model guidance such as the ICON model and the European model seem to be pointing to the possibility of an area of disturbed weather to be in place over the Bay of Campeche by early next week. The GFS model also shows this possible disturbance, but given it’s been forecasting tropical development to occur for a couple of weeks now, it will not be considered into my forecast. The European ensemble model guidance does show about 25 percent chance for tropical development early next week in the Bay of Campeche.
Here Are My Thoughts: More than likely nothing will come from any area of disturbed weather that develops in the Bay of Campeche and the southwestern Gulf early next week. That said, there is, I think, a low chance (probably about a 10-20 percent chance) for perhaps a tropical depression to form in the Bay of Campeche as an area of disturbed weather tries to take advantage of the shape of the coastline of the Bay of Campeche and tries to spin up.
Either way, any tropical disturbance probably will be able to bring heavy rain and flooding to eastern Mexico during the first half of next week. It appears, for now, that a ridge of high pressure over the southeastern United States should be strong enough to push any tropical system inland into eastern Mexico rather than it being pulled northward towards the US Gulf Coast.
Elsewhere across the Atlantic, Caribbean and the rest of the Gulf, tropical development is not expected throughout this week right through probably all of next week. In fact, if nothing comes from the disturbance over the Bay of Campeche early next week, then we may not see any sort of tropical development throughout the rest of this month.
The next tropical weather discussion will be issued on Wednesday.