Rainfall & Storminess Will Only Increase Further Rest Of This Week Across The Western Caribbean; Tropical Storm May Form In The Westernmost Caribbean Next Week With A Track Towards The Florida Peninsula By The Weekend Of June 8th & 9^th

May 28^th 2013 By Rob Lightbown, Crown Weather Services

Satellite imagery this morning is showing an increase in shower and thunderstorm activity across the western Caribbean, including the Yucatan Peninsula, Belize, Central America and the Cayman Islands. This increase in moisture is associated with the very much advertised upward motion pulse of the Madden Julian Oscillation that I have been discussing for the last couple of weeks or so. Additionally, a monsoonal trough of low pressure has set up near Panama which is helping to facilitate the shower and thunderstorm activity. I do believe, eventually, this entire mess will organize into our first tropical storm of the season next week which may end up tracking towards the Florida Peninsula.

It seems the system we will need to watch that may spark this development is a developing tropical depression in the eastern Pacific. This tropical cyclone is expected to track northward into southern Mexico by later this week and the energy from this system may get pulled into the western Caribbean towards next week where a new tropical cyclone may develop. The latest European model guidance forecasts that this tropical cyclone will develop by about Wednesday and Thursday of next week and the upper level pattern is such that a track towards the west coast of Florida by the weekend of June 8th & 9th would seem possible.

The GFS model guidance points to a festering low pressure system that sits over the Yucatan Peninsula for much of next week before it finally develops into a tropical cyclone in the southern Gulf of Mexico next Thursday. This tropical cyclone then tracks northeastward making landfall near Tampa next Friday. The Canadian model guidance is even quicker with development with a tropical system forming in the eastern Gulf of Mexico by Sunday. This system then is forecast to track northeastward up the Eastern Seaboard of the United States early next week.

One thing is for sure is that it is going to be a very wet rest of the week across much of the western Caribbean with heavy rainfall likely from Central America and the Yucatan Peninsula to Cuba, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Very wet weather with a heavy rainfall threat is also expected across south Florida and the Florida Keys with up to five inches of rain expected between today and Friday morning. This heavy rain threat is then expected to spread across the rest of the Florida Peninsula and also the Bahamas for next week.

My opinion is that the Canadian model guidance is way too fast with development and I think this will be a very slow developer and I am going towards a GFS/European model type forecast. This means that a very wet and sheared tropical storm may develop by about next Thursday or so just off of the coast of the northeastern Yucatan Peninsula. This system may then track northeastward and track across the Florida Peninsula during the weekend of June 8th & 9th and may be a very large rain maker for the Florida Peninsula.

Needless to say I am monitoring things very closely, so check back for further updates over the next several days as I will continue to have frequent updates.

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