Daniel Sparkman

Once again we have our eyes down on the tropics. The National Hurricane Center is watching a new tropical wave called Invest 97. The wave is located about 750 miles east of the Windward Islands and is moving west at about 10 to 15 mph.

The area marked ’2′ above is Invest 97. Area 1 is the remnants of Debby and area 3 is an area of disorganized showers that has little chance of becoming organized, at this time. Now back to Invest 97. The associated thunderstorm activity hasn’t changed much in organization over the past few hours, due to drier air in the vicinity of the system. As of the 1 a.m. update the National Hurricane Center is giving this system a 20 percent chance of becoming a tropical cyclone in the next 48 hours. The latest forecast models tend to disagree.

Above you can see the latest models forecasting intensity. Given that the most recent models were released about 5 hours ago. All but two models indicate that the system, will become a Tropical Storm within the next 48 hours. Most have it occurring between 7pm Saturday and 7am Sunday. These models also indicate that the system, over the next five days, will peak in intensity Monday night before losing some strength. The next map may help explain why.

From Monday night on the model data is fairly inconsistent. As you see above, the cone of uncertainty encompasses the entire Caribbean Sea. And this will continue to be the case until the storm can form and get caught in a steering current that will determine it’s eventual path. As you can see there are some solutions that will bering the system, into the Gulf of Mexico, but that is still a week or more away. We will of course keep you up-to-date on the tropics and Invest 97. If there is more to share, I’ll be sure to do that here and later on WVUA News at 10. Until then, have a great Saturday and stay cool!

-Daniel