Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Hurricane Watch: "Tropical Storm Lisa forms, but the area to watch is the Caribbean" (UNG; USO)

Last week Eric Berger, the Houston Chronicle's SciGuy pointed out that WxWeb's GFS model run was projecting some development in the Caribbean by month-end. We linked in "Hurricane Watch: Now it Gets Interesting, Tropical Disturbance Headed for Texas Within Two Weeks? (UNG; USO)"

I just checked the latest GFS run, the projection is not as pronounced there but the European model is still showing it. Here's Berger:

Good morning.
As expected, Tropical Storm Lisa formed overnight in the deep tropics. Lisa is the Atlantic season's 12th named storm. It is not expected to threaten land and forecasters at the National Hurricane Center say it should face higher wind shear after four days or so which could weaken it.
We're dealing with weather, so it's inherently unpredictable, but Lisa clearly has the look of a fish storm.
BEYOND LISA
The key concern, which I first mentioned last week, continues to be the possibility of storm development in the Caribbean Sea during the next week to 10 days.
This morning the National Hurricane Center tabbed an area of disturbed weather crossing the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean Sea and said it had a 10 percent chance of developing into a tropical depression or storm during the next two days. Over the next five days, there's probably a considerably better chance of development.
Eventually this storm is expected to track westward across the warm Caribbean Sea and possibly to turn northwest or northward into the Gulf of Mexico.
ecmwf0921010.jpg
ECMWF
The Euro model brings a large hurricane into the Gulf late next week.
Waters in the Caribbean are very warm at this time of year, and there's plenty of potential heat along the path this storm is likely to follow across the central and then perhaps Northwest Caribbean Sea....MORE