AccuWeather's Alex DaSilva and Bernie Rayno monitor the tropical activity taking place near the Caribbean Sea. This tropical rainstorm may strengthen into a depression depending on its track across the Caribbean.
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00:00Alex, let's take a look at the system here, and it looks so much different, so much more
00:06vigorous this morning than it did this time yesterday.
00:09In fact, a big blowup of clouds now north and east of Puerto Rico in the last couple
00:15of hours.
00:16Yes, certainly this tropical wave is starting to get better organized, but it's going to
00:20be a very slow progression here over the next couple of days.
00:23Starting to see much more thunderstorms developing around a center of circulation that's trying
00:28to form somewhere north of the islands or so.
00:31Again, still not getting that close circulation, that's why this thing hasn't been designated
00:35as a tropical storm or tropical depression yet, but we're starting to see the early signs
00:39of organization here as thunderstorms begin to form.
00:43Yes, there's less dry air now.
00:44There's still some, and that's certainly inhibiting it, but you know, you go back, you saw a lot
00:49of dry air around the center, certainly less in the last several hours.
00:53Yes, this is all the Saharan dust that's coming from the continent of Africa, coming across
00:58the Atlantic Basin, starting to even see some all the way into Texas, so again, that's
01:01that same Saharan dust that's been kind of choking the system off as it's come across
01:06the Atlantic.
01:07Now, what we're going to see over the next couple of days, this Saharan dust and the
01:10wind shear that the storm is currently dealing with is going to begin to wane.
01:14You see those whiter colors closer to the United States?
01:18That's less wind shear, so the storm is moving into a more favorable environment for strengthening
01:23here toward the end of the week.
01:25There's one more hurdle it has to clear.
01:26I always call it the shredder, the paper shredder or tropical system shredder.
01:32That is called Hispaniola.
01:33Yes, the mountains on some of these islands, 6, 7, 8,000 foot peaks here, and that really
01:38disrupts the tropical systems as they come very close to those islands, so we're going
01:42to have to watch to see where the center of circulation with this thing forms.
01:47If it forms north of the islands, the system might be able to stay just to the north of
01:50those high peaks and might have a better chance of strengthening.
01:53However, if it goes over those islands, it might have a little bit more of a difficult
01:57time strengthening just due to those really high peaks.
02:00So it's Hispaniola, that is going to be the, and you could even see the way you have this
02:04drawn is that we're taking into account what happens in Hispaniola.
02:09That's why at this point, we only have a medium, but if it gets through Hispaniola, I know
02:15there's been discussion about making a higher area, correct?
02:19Yeah, that's absolutely right.
02:20We're going to have to watch the progression of this thing as it moves to the northwest.
02:24Now we're seeing a lot more blowup of convection right now.
02:26The system is beginning to organize.
02:28Now what I think might happen here is as the system organizes, stronger systems tend to
02:33pull to the north.
02:34That's why currently right now we're favoring a storm track east of the peninsula of Florida
02:39because again, it's organizing right now.
02:41Storms that are stronger tend to curve to the north faster.
02:44Now if the system stays a little bit weaker, however, there's still an opportunity though
02:49for it to end up in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
02:51We're just going to have to keep a close eye to see what happens here over the next 48
02:55to 72 hours.
02:56All right.
02:57We're always looking ahead.
02:58You and the long range team has identified another possible area later this month.
03:03Yeah, it doesn't look like the tropical season is done.
03:05It looks like things are only going to be picking up here as we go throughout the month
03:09of August here.
03:10We're highlighting an area from the central Atlantic all the way to the islands here through
03:14the middle of the month.
03:16We're concerned about those really warm sea surface temperatures.
03:18That hasn't been a problem all year.
03:20The wind shear is beginning to lessen across the Atlantic and that dry Saharan dust is
03:26also going to begin to wane as we head towards the heart of the hurricane season.
03:30So really look for things to start picking up as we go toward the middle of August.
03:34Accuweath Elite Hurricane Expert, Alex DeSilva.
03:37Alex, great information.
03:38Thanks for joining us.