Weather analysis today revealed that there are no areas of concern in terms of tropical development across the Atlantic, Caribbean and the Gulf. Extremely strong wind shear values can be found across the entire Gulf, Caribbean and Atlantic. These very strong wind shear values are highly unfavorable for any sort of tropical development.
While tropical development looks unlikely throughout the rest of this week right through this weekend, there are some items that I do want to mention.
The First Thing That I Wanted To Mention is the possibility of several days of unsettled and squally weather across much of the Lesser Antilles, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and the area around the eastern Caribbean. This squally weather looks to possibly occur starting on Thursday and Friday and lasting through all of this weekend and the first half of next week.
Model guidance seems to be starting to agree with each other with showing a trough of low pressure pushing southward from a departing frontal system over the central North Atlantic. This trough of low pressure is anticipated to reach the eastern Caribbean by Friday night and Saturday where it could stall for several days.
It needs to be pointed out that tropical development is not expected from this weather system due to the expectation of very strong wind shear values.
What does this mean in terms of weather across the eastern Caribbean? An increasing frequency in showers and thunderstorms with squally weather is expected starting on Thursday and Friday. This squally weather currently looks to reach its peak across Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the Leeward Islands from Friday through Saturday. The peak of the squally weather looks to occur across the Windward Islands from Saturday through Sunday.
The Second Thing That I Wanted To Mention is a low chance for tropical development over the southwestern Caribbean from this weekend through next week. While the chances of tropical development are low, they are not a zero percent chance. Because of this, this is something that I will continue to keep an eye on.
All of the model guidance continues to be on and off with showing tropical development with one run of a model showing something and the next run dropping it. Usually when we see this with the model guidance, it means tropical development probably will not occur.
Weather analysis as of today does show an area of thunderstorms located over the far eastern Pacific just south of Panama. It should be pointed out that the wind shear values over the far eastern Pacific are around 15 to 20 knots, which is marginally favorable for tropical development. Because of this, I do think that we’ll see higher development chances over the eastern Pacific rather than the southwestern Caribbean.
As of right now, I still think that there’s a 10 percent chance for tropical development over the southwestern Caribbean from this weekend through next week.
The Final Item That I Wanted To Mention is a better chance for tropical development in the western Caribbean between about June 6 and June 16.
It is looking increasingly more possible that a rather robust upward motion pulse will push into the Atlantic and the Caribbean during the period from June 6 to June 16. This upward motion pulse of the Madden Julian Oscillation will inject moisture and energy into the atmosphere across the Caribbean and the Atlantic leading to a favorable background state fro tropical development.
While the extremely long range model guidance do not show any sort of tropical development during that time period, I do think that it is something that needs to be watched. The area that I think probably needs the most scrutiny is the western Caribbean into the Gulf where it is favorable normally for tropical development during the first half of June.
While this is something that might need to be watched closely once we get into early June, it’s nothing to be overly worried or concerned about.
The next tropical weather discussion will be issued on Saturday.