Something To Watch This Week
Since the Well from Hell and Florida legislature aren’t enough to worry about, we now have Invest 97:
A vigorous tropical wave located near the eastern Dominican Republic is producing a large area of showers and thunderstorms extending from the northern Leeward Islands westward to Hispaniola.
Surface observations indicate that a closed circulation has not yet formed. However environmental conditions are expected to be favorable for tropical cyclone formation as the system moves west-northwestward at about 10 mph during the next day or so.
There is a high chance, 60 percent, of this system becoming a tropical depression or a tropical storm during the next 48 hours.
Regardless of development locally heavy rainfall and gusty winds will likely affect the Virgin Islands Puerto Rico the Dominican Republic Haiti eastern Cuba the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Bahamas during the next couple of days. The heavy rains could cause life-threatening flash floods and mud slides in mountainous areas.
The current track has this heading across the Florida peninsula and into the Gulf of Mexico.
2 comments
Looks like NHC just downgraded the chances of it becoming a named storm. Hope that holds true.
Hispaniola is interfering with the development, but it still looks good to be a tropical storm or hurricane after it reaches the Gulf.
All we can do is wait and watch.
Local emergency management is already pulling in some of the oil booms in anticipation of a storm, but the track looks positive for pushing oil back out to Gulf.