The system expected to become Tropical Storm Sara will bring extreme rainfall to Central America, but it could also be a danger to Florida.
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00:00It has been a very busy second half of hurricane season, Bree, and the tropics are not done yet.
00:06No, not done yet. We are in the last month of tropical season, but don't let that fool you.
00:11Can't keep your guard down. Bernie Rayno spoke earlier with AccuWeather lead hurricane expert
00:15Alex Da Silva about an area in the Caribbean that should have people in the southeast concerned
00:21as we move into next week. You had mentioned to me this yesterday, you were concerned not
00:27only of a hurricane, that this was going to go to a major hurricane by the time we get into the
00:32weekend here. A major hurricane, maximum staying winds of at least 111 miles per hour. Yeah, I
00:37think certainly we'll be dealing with a hurricane by the end of this week, and I think we'll be
00:40dealing with a major hurricane at least no later than this weekend here. Again, all the conditions
00:45are coming together for this to rapidly intensify. Again, we have plenty of moisture, low wind shear,
00:50very, very warm water temperatures and ocean heat content. I don't really see a whole lot that could
00:54prevent this from really exploding into a major hurricane. I guess the only thing I really see is
00:59potential land interaction. The storm could get close to Central America, and if it gets close to
01:04Central America, it could kind of tangle with the land a little bit there, and that could, you know,
01:08prevent this from getting really, really powerful. But either way, I do expect a strong hurricane to
01:13be in the western Caribbean here over the next couple of days. All right, really quickly here,
01:17this system kind of meanders around in the Caribbean or in the northwest Caribbean as we
01:22head toward the weekend, and then here's the problem. High pressure. We were hoping that high
01:26would stay maintained across Florida and drive this away from the United States, perhaps moving
01:32west. There's nothing that suggests that any longer, though. That high leaves, then you have
01:38that dip in the jet stream coming in across Texas, and that is why the window's open for Florida.
01:44Yeah, it certainly is. We're expecting a turn to the north sometime, and you know, it's going to
01:48depend how close it gets to land to see how strong it gets in the Gulf of Mexico. If it can avoid land,
01:54if it can kind of take more of that eastern side of our cone here, it could avoid a lot of that
01:58land, and we could be dealing with potentially even a major hurricane in the southern Gulf
02:02of Mexico here. Now, a better case would be if it goes into land here. It kind of disrupts the
02:08circulation, but either way, I think the residents of Central and South Florida need to watch this
02:13very, very carefully, as we could very well have a hurricane on their doorstep mid to late next week.
02:19AccuWeather lead hurricane expert, Alex DeSova. Alex, thanks for joining us.
02:23All right, let's take you to Fort Myers, Florida. You know, south and central Florida,
02:28not out of the crosshairs when it comes to potential tropical impacts. Right now,
02:33really no problems here on the horizon. You're at 83. You have some sunshine here, a few clouds in
02:38the sky, but we're keeping our eye on this story here in the Caribbean. This is going to be our
02:44next storm that we are forecasting here on AccuWeather, anticipated to become our next
02:49named storm, Sara. Right now, a tropical rainstorm, still packing a lot of moisture,
02:54but there's a lot of factors helping this storm, or at least playing into the story,
03:01or at least the chance that this storm is going to intensify. It's moving over very warm water.
03:06It's going to continue to move slowly here westward. It's going to be bringing some
03:10drenching rain, some devastating impacts here across Central America, Nicaragua, Honduras,
03:16but then it's going to take a loop. It's going to backtrack to the north and to the east,
03:21and with that chance of moving north and east, it's going to move right back into the Gulf of
03:26Mexico, and then there's a chance, of course, to impact Florida as well. Why exactly are we
03:32talking about rapid intensification, or at least further strengthening of this storm?
03:37Well, the story tells it all. If you look at the ocean heat content, if you take a vertical
03:41column here of the ocean and you go down pretty far, it's warm further down you go, and so there's
03:47a lot of fuel that this storm can draw on, but you'll see that we have a little bit less, or at
03:52least the ocean heat content, lower in the Gulf of Mexico. So there are things fighting this storm,
03:58as it does move northward, but we are anticipating here it to fight its way right along the Yucatan
04:04into the Gulf, and then, of course, head towards Florida. That moisture content, though, it's
04:09there. It has plenty of moisture here to unleash across this zone, Jamaica to Central America,
04:16and it has very little wind shear to deal with as well. You'll see that we have more wind shear here
04:22closer towards the U.S. coast. We'll see exactly how that plays out as we get closer towards the
04:27event, but keeping a lot of that risk away for most of the Gulf, but Florida, you're not out
04:32of the question here yet. Either way, we're tracking extreme rainfall here to Central America
04:38through Sunday, starting tomorrow, and that risk of catastrophic flooding
04:42still going to be running high in these zones.