Dry, dusty air has prevented tropical development in recent weeks, but forecasters are keeping a close eye on a tropical wave that could be in the Caribbean by the start of August.
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00:00We are dealing with some dry, dusty air across much of the Atlantic, and that's keeping us in the short term out of trouble.
00:07You can see a lot of widespread dusty Saharan air, and it's becoming in large plumes and moving west with time.
00:14But that's been driven by winds aloft.
00:17In other levels of the atmosphere, there's been strong wind shear in opposing directions.
00:21And when you get these winds, they kind of argue against one another at different altitudes.
00:25We call that wind shear, and that keeps tropical waves disorganized.
00:29So for two reasons, for the wind shear and also because of the dry, dusty Saharan air,
00:34two big arguments against any strong tropical development in the short term.
00:39Now, there will be a tropical wave we're tracking that's going to be moving into this area,
00:43but overall, we're looking pretty good.
00:45You can see what's going on in Bermuda.
00:47We're looking delightful out there right now to the north of that plume of Saharan air.
00:52Another big cruise ship out there.
00:55We're looking good in this area, and there's nothing too stressful for our friends in Bermuda.
00:59But overall, we will be tracking a tropical wave, a pretty robust one, that's out over the east-central Atlantic.
01:06As we spin this forward, and you can see the graphic loop here,
01:10this area of low pressure, this tropical wave, is the one that we need to keep an eye on and track as it moves into this area.
01:16Now, you'll notice very dry air in its path.
01:19Also, that area of wind shear that we highlighted is also in its path.
01:23So therefore, we're not going to see this organize any time soon.
01:26In fact, it is possible that it might not even fully survive through this zone of inhospitable air for this tropical wave.
01:34But if it can make it through and eventually move into the Caribbean,
01:37it'll have to battle some land interaction, and that will likely keep things in check.
01:42If it can survive through that and reach the western Caribbean or the Gulf,
01:45there could be an opportunity for this to organize late next week.
01:49If it does organize into a tropical storm, its name would become deadly.