By Lindsay Milbourne From My Fox Hurricane

Models hint that the Atlantic Basin may heat up later this week. We’re watching two tropical waves in the south central Atlantic Tuesday. In the short term both tropical waves struggle with dry African air and enhanced upper level winds as they move westward. Further organization will be a gradual process. The tropical wave circled in yellow has minimal deep convection with plenty of dry air in the vicinity. It heads west-northwest over the next five days and officially per the NHC (as of Tuesday afternoon) has a 10% chance of becoming a tropical depression by Thursday and a 20% chance by Sunday. The tropical wave circled in orange, now Invest 96L, is a little more impressive, but disorganized for now. Convection is deeper due to less dry air but it is widely scattered. Wind shear is also moderate at 10-20 kts. Invest 96L has a greater chance of organizing Thursday or Friday near the Lesser Antilles. There is more moisture in this region and water temperatures are also warmer. The odds of tropical depression/tropical storm development are a little higher. As of Tuesday afternoon there is a 30% chance of development by Thursday and 40% chance by Sunday. This feature bears watching. Hurricane Reconnaissance Aircraft is on deck to investigate Invest 96L Thursday, if necessary.

atlatnci sat

Water temperatures near the Lesser Antilles climb into the low to middle 80s. This is a few degrees warmer than many of the buoy readings east of the islands. The Gulf of Mexico is even warmer. Many buoys show readings in the upper 80s. It’s early, but models like the GFS, NAVGEM, and Canadian suggest Invest 96L may thrive off of these tropical waters early to mid work week next week.

Caribbean and Atlantic Water Temperatures

For most of the 2014 Atlantic season wind shear values across the Caribbean have been moderate to high squashing chances for tropical depression/storm development (along with tons of dry air). The question remains just how much these values may relax over the weekend/next week. This is when computer models suggest Invest 96L may move into this region. The 12Z GFS suggests a belt of moderate to high wind shear sits over parts of the western Caribbean into the western Atlantic.

GFS Wind Shear

Early computer model runs on Invest 96L show a west-northwest track over the Lesser Antilles late Thursday or Friday. Over the weekend possible Tropical Storm Cristobal could pass near Hispaniola followed by possible interaction with Cuba on Monday. From there Invest 96L could enter the Gulf of Mexico. As always with long-range forecast there lots of “ifs” with the track and intensity. Interest in the Caribbean need to keep an eye on the tropics the next few days.

Invest 96L Models

It’s just one computer model run and over a week away but the 12Z GFS suggests Invest 96L makes it into the southern Gulf by Tuesday and could head for the northern Gulf coast late Thursday into Friday.

GFS MSL and Precip Rate

Dry, dusty stable air form the Saharan Air Layer (SAL) extends from the western Caribbean to the Cape Verde Islands. The extend of this dry air has eroded a bit over the past week near the ITCZ with more tropical waves rolling through the region. This makes sense with the climatological peak of season about three weeks away. The graphic below is courtesy the University Wisconsin at Madison.

splitEW

Here is the Saharan Air Layer just 10 days ago on August 9th. Notice little to the convection along the monsoonal trough.

For more on this story go to: http://blog.myfoxhurricane.com/2014/08/19/watching-invest-96l-could-move-into-caribbean-late-week/#ixzz3AwW1MoDh

Related story:

Confidence increasing that Invest 96 could develop and move into Caribbean this weekend

By Jeff Huffman From WQCS

Several tropical waves in the Atlantic have struggled to develop recently, but this morning Florida Public Radio Meteorologist Jeff Huffman says Invest 96 is “one to watch”.

Invest 96 has a medium chance of developing into a tropical storm by the weekend, and long range forecast models are beginning to hint at a potential threat to portions of the Caribbean and maybe even the U.S. early next week. Specifics in a forecast track or strength of Invest 96 is premature at this point, but it should be noted that this particular disturbance is more likely to take a different path than many of its predecessors, possibly yielding a different result. Floridians are encouraged to stay informed on the latest developments with Invest 96 over the coming days.

For more on this story go to: http://wqcs.org/post/confidence-increasing-invest-96-could-develop-and-move-caribbean-weekend

LATEST MODELS AT AUG 21 2014 8:00 EST