AccuWeather's Bernie Rayno and Alex DaSilva warn a tropical rainstorm brewing in the Caribbean will strengthen and threaten the U.S. Gulf Coast as a major hurricane toward the end of the week.
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00:00Breaking weather news right now, as you and the forecast team and the long-range team have made a decision.
00:08Yeah, I'll tell you, Bernie, the more I look at this scenario for this tropical rainstorm, the more and more concerned I am getting.
00:14It was the decision at MapDisco this morning to put the landfall now as a Category 3 hurricane.
00:20That is a major hurricane just east of Apalachicola Thursday at 5 p.m. around that time frame.
00:26So now we are expecting a major hurricane to make landfall in the panhandle of Florida on Thursday afternoon.
00:32We'll talk more about the movement. We do have some scenarios.
00:35Again, there is room to the west and room to the east of this track.
00:39But the big takeaway is a major landfall at a major hurricane at landfall.
00:46Let's talk about what we're seeing right now and what you're seeing in the Caribbean off the coast of Nicaragua and Honduras.
00:53Yeah, we're starting to see the storm starting to consolidate around a center.
00:57Now, the question still will remain where exactly that center will form.
01:01And that may have big ramifications later on as to where the storm does indeed make landfall.
01:05So the next 24 hours, I think, are going to be very key to see exactly where this center of circulation does indeed form.
01:12The hurricane hunters will be in there later on today to give us that very valuable information that then the models can ingest.
01:19And hopefully in the next 24 hours, give us a much better picture about where this storm will go.
01:24Certainly in the short range, you can see the clouds moving north.
01:27So we feel pretty comfortable that this will be somewhere in the northwest Caribbean, probably a storm by Tuesday afternoon and Tuesday evening.
01:36And then, Alex, this goes into the Gulf of Mexico and things get even more concerning here as far as ingredients.
01:43Now, the one thing that you and I were talking about in our forecast team, there is a lot of dry air in the Gulf of Mexico.
01:50Could that be the ingredient that is missing that would at least stop the system from rapidly intensifying?
01:58Well, during Francine going into the western Gulf of Mexico, we did see a lot of that dry air get wrapped into that storm.
02:05And that really helped to prevent Francine from becoming a major hurricane.
02:09I just don't think this is the same type of situation with this one.
02:12This storm is going to have a very large bubble of moisture moving north with it.
02:16So as it strengthens, I think it's going to be able to fan out and really push that dry air out away from it,
02:22essentially make its own environment as it moves north.
02:25So, no, I don't think the dry air is going to have a major influence on this storm.
02:29And we still expect it to become a major hurricane regardless.
02:32Last week, we were worried about wind shear, wind shear in the Gulf of Mexico, everything we look at now.
02:36And you could see our current wind shear product with the light purple.
02:39Low wind shear and that dark purple we think is going to be lessening in the northwest Caribbean over the next 24 hours.
02:47But here's, I know, the ingredient that has you most concerned.
02:52Yeah, it's the ocean heat content. Essentially, it's the depth of that warm water.
02:56Now, the western Caribbean has the highest ocean heat content of the entire Atlantic Basin.
03:01The 80-degree temperature line extends 300 to 400 feet down below the surface of the ocean.
03:08Tropical systems need about 80 degrees Fahrenheit right at the surface to survive and thrive.
03:12Now, when you have that water going all the way down, 300, 400 feet down, it just gives a lot more fuel for rapid intensification.
03:19And that's why we're concerned that this thing could really rapidly intensify in the northwest Caribbean and eastern Gulf of Mexico.
03:26We had a meeting at our NAP discussion at 9 o'clock to discuss these graphics.
03:32Let's talk about the different scenarios because while we are pointing to just east of Apalachicola, there is some room, Alex, on the western and eastern side.
03:42Let's talk about the western side, how there could be a shift farther to the west.
03:47Yeah, we're going to be watching this dip in the jet stream coming down across the Mississippi Valley.
03:51Now, if that dip is a little bit stronger, comes a little further south, it can act to pull the storm a little bit further west.
03:59So areas like Biloxi, Mobile, those are the areas that need to keep a close eye for any western shifts in this track.
04:06Now, on the flip side, if that dip in the jet stream is a little faster, a little more progressive, maybe a little bit weaker,
04:12it can kind of stay a little further north and act to steer the system a little bit further east towards the Big Bend area.
04:18Now, this current time, the scenario that we're going with is probably somewhere in between those two scenarios.
04:25And so we're bringing the storm north as a Category 3 hurricane just east of Apalachicola Thursday evening.
04:31Yeah, and there it is again, the breaking news.
04:34Again, you and the forecasting department made the call.
04:37We are now forecasting a major hurricane at landfall.
04:42And, Alex, this will easily be, unfortunately, the strongest hurricane to hit the United States at landfall,
04:51the strongest landfalling hurricane so far this season.
04:55Yeah, it will.
04:56And we want people, even on the eastern side of the cone, to watch this very carefully.
05:00People in the Tampa Bay area, we want you to watch out for storm surge.
05:03Even though the storm may pass very far to the west, the storm can still push a lot of storm surge into the Bay.
05:10So just because you're not on the center of that track, we want to make sure that you're keeping an eye out for those impacts.
05:16The storm surge, this is going to be a very large storm, I think.
05:19So storm surge impacts, rain impacts, wind impacts could extend well beyond the scope of that cone.
05:25AccuWeather lead hurricane expert Alex DeSilva.
05:28Again, Alex, thanks for joining us here on AccuWeather Early.