Caribbean Hurricane Network

Active Tropical Systems: None!
Atlantic Hurricane Season is from June 1 - November 30

GOES Satellite - Zoomed in on the Caribbean (12:30 UTC, 23 minutes ago)
Scale bar (lower right) is 250 miles. [more satellite imagery].

Monday, November 12, 2018 20:45PM EST - 96L

Good evening!

Have not posted lately due to numerous personal events so sorry if you have missed my posts and updates. However, I am still here! Thanks to Gert for holding my end up!

Potential named storm Patty, now 96L, is located a few hundred miles to the east of Guadeloupe as a discombobulated, wind sheared system. Moving to the WNW at about 8 mph, 96L is naked below the waist, aka south of the low pressure center, due to the wind shear force field that has been protecting the island chain all year long. This means almost all of the strong thunderstorms and winds are to the north of the "center". Winds are approx. 35 miles an hour technically meaning TD status but there is no defined closed circulation hence still it remains a strong tropical wave, at this time.

Due to the strong wind shear, 96L is not expected to develop around the northern Leeward Islands but will drop 1-6 inches of rain with gusty winds and angry up to 10-12 foot seas. Down the road, wind shear will lessen and the seas will be a bit warmer leading to probable Patty named status, giving the Turks and Caicos and maybe the lower Bahamas some worries. But, that should be the extent as a strong front coming off the coast should intercept probable Patty and turn her out to sea, giving Bermuda a dousing on the fast track by while the Florida coast breathes a late season sigh of relief.

For those who wonder where all the rain is coming from all of a sudden, November is one of our historically rainiest months. The rains are not surprising and neither is a late season spin up. Official season ends in 18 days. It has been so far, a lucky year here around the eastern Caribbean as the continuous wind shield just to our east has been a formidable adversary to approaching systems since May.

Stay safe and stay blessed.

Dave

Virus-free. www.avg.com

Monday, November 12, 2018 09:02AM PST - Patty?

It looks like we might have a late season storm on our hands. Invest 96L, located just east of the Leeward Islands has a high change to develop into tropical storm Patty. It is expected to travel west to west-northwest. Hopefully it will pass a bit more north to avoid the northeastern islands, like St.Maarten, Anguilla and the Virgin Islands since they already had a lot of rain over the last couple of days. It doesn't look like this storm will ever become a hurricane, but it might be a significant rainmaker for the islands. Stay tuned! -Gert

- - - Invest 96L and its projected path - - -

Sunday, October 28, 2018 12:39PM PDT - Oscar

And indeed, as forecasted, Invest 95L has developed into tropical storm Oscar. It is even expected to become a hurricane, though not higher than a Category 1. Looks like that the forecast models were pretty much spot on. It will not be a threat to the islands, and it is expected to stay a safe distance from Bermuda when it will pass about 460 miles to the east in 2 days or so. Still one more month of hurricane season, but hopefully this was the last one! -Gert

Thursday, October 25, 2018 08:58AM PDT - Oscar?

Looks like we might have another named storm this year! Invest 95L is about 800 miles east-northeast of the islands, and has a 70% chance to become a tropical cyclone over the next 48 hours. Looking at the spaghetti plots (see links above) it doesn't seem to be a threat to the islands. And if it makes that sharp turn north before it gets to Bermuda they should be fine as well.

In the Pacific on the other hand, the Northern Mariana Islands got slammed by an Irma-like storm named Yutu yesterday and Mexico earlier by Category 3 storm Willa (which was a Cat.5 just a day earlier). Remarkable about both storms is the rapid intensification. Wunderground reports that Willa went from a tropical depression on Saturday to a Category 5 storm on Monday, a record setting 54 hours, and similar to Maria in the Atlantic last year. Yutu as well went from 75 mph (Cat.1) to 180 mph (Cat.5) in just 30 hours. As you can imagine the situation is not good. The islands, close to Guam, are part of the US Commonwealth. But not sure if that really helps with the recovery seeing what the US Government did for Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

Finally, check out the pictures from the not-storm related flooding in Trinidad last weekend send in by our special hurricane correspondents. Many aid organizations have offered to help, including Nicki Minaj, who is born there. -Gert

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