ORLANDO, Fla. – The Caribbean disturbance highlighted last week thankfully was not able to materialize as it drifted through the central Caribbean and southwest Atlantic.
Back in the Caribbean, however, a new region of showers and thunderstorms has developed with a small area of low pressure.
Dry air in the Caribbean should limit any significant development of the system as it moves west toward Central America through the week.
The National Hurricane Center gives this disturbance a 10% chance to develop over the next seven days.
In the Central Atlantic, a non-tropical area of low pressure is expected to develop along a front over the next couple of days. After that, environmental conditions appear conducive for the system to gain subtropical or tropical characteristics later in the week.
The National Hurricane Center gives this future entity a 30% chance for development over the next seven days.
The water temperature in the central and north Atlantic are still way above normal.
This will be the area and scenario we will look for for any potential post-season development this year or early-season development for the 2024 hurricane season.
Hurricane season officially runs through the end of November. There are only two names left on the list of names for the 2023 season: Vince and Whitney.
If all names are used up, a supplemental list of names will be used to complete the season.
Why no named storm off Florida coast last week?
Parts of South Florida saw tropical storm-like and even hurricane-like damage with a storm late last week. So why didn’t it have a name? While it was an impressive storm and looked like a tropical system on radar, the storm was not meteorologically tropical.
This was similar to a Nor’easter, a storm with northeast winds that typically impacts the mid-Atlantic and northeast U.S., that gets its strength from differences and temperature and pressure in the atmosphere. Meteorologically known as a baroclinic low.
These storms are also extremely powerful and cause cause damage similar to that of a hurricane.
Tropical systems gain their strength from warm water. These are known as barotropic lows.