Monitoring potential tropical development in the Atlantic
AccuWeather's Alex DaSilva and Bernie Rayno monitor possible tropical development brewing in the Atlantic as we move closer towards the peak of hurricane season in September.
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00:00It feels like I've been in hibernation the last couple of weeks. Not a whole lot of activity at
00:04all, so it's good to be back, but it looks like things are really going to be ramping up here
00:08as we head towards the statistical peak of the hurricane season, which is September 10th. You
00:12can see that graph there. It's like you're going up a roller coaster. Up, up, up, up, up,
00:16all the way up until September 10th, and then it's coming down from there. But it looks like
00:19things are really going to be ramping up here. All right, let's take the first system we've been
00:24talking about this all week, an area of showers and thunderstorms now around 40 degrees west.
00:28One thing I've noticed, Alex, is that on the infrared satellite picture, you've seen
00:32yellows, oranges, and reds for a pretty long period of time, and that tells us that this
00:38tropical wave, at the very least, is holding its own. It certainly is, and that's kind of
00:42been the problem for much of the year here, is these tropical waves have been actually pretty
00:46robust, but they roll off of Africa, and then they hit that Saharan dust that we've been talking
00:50about for weeks and weeks, and they just fall apart. So they really haven't been able to make
00:54much headway or develop across the Atlantic as they've come west. Now, take a look at this,
00:59Alex. Maybe some dry air along the northern periphery, but it has a river or a little area
01:06off to the west where there's not much dry air. You see blue and white, and that means
01:11there's enough moisture, at the very least, to keep this system, let's say, viable. It certainly
01:16does, and if you looked at this map a few weeks ago, almost the entire map would have been orange
01:21or red, but now we're starting to see that dry air starting to wane as we head towards the peak
01:25of the hurricane season. More tropical waves are starting to come off of Africa, and I think we
01:29have to watch each and every one of these, including this first one, for development here
01:34within the next couple of days. There's the wind shear product. There is some dark purple,
01:38southern edge of that, but what I see is also a ribbon of light purple extending toward the
01:43islands and into the Caribbean. Yeah, besides the dry air, the wind shear has kind of been a
01:48problem this month as well, but it looks like that is also starting to come down, especially
01:52across what we call that main development region, which is from the Caribbean all the way out
01:56towards Africa. So you can see that ribbon of lighter purple in there, more favorable environment
02:01for the storm as it's approaching the eastern Caribbean. ACUA, the lead hurricane expert, Alex
02:07da Silva, thanks for joining us.