Three tropical areas to watch across the Atlantic
The Atlantic Basin now has three areas of interest flagged by the National Hurricane Center. It has been a quiet Atlantic hurricane season so far, but that could change in the coming week.
Areas being monitored
The graphic below shows the three areas that are being monitored by the National Hurricane Center. One is located in the northeastern Atlantic near Portugal, one is located in the central Atlantic and a third is located in the east Atlantic.
Chances of development?
While these chances of development are low for now, we could learn more about these areas in the coming days.
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Northeast Atlantic: This strong low pressure is located several hundred miles off the coast of Portugal. Due to the warmer-than-average water temperatures in the area, this area could continue to develop until Monday. Then it should encounter some unfavorable atmospheric conditions and potentially weaken as it heads southeast towards Portugal and will not impact the U.S.
Central Atlantic: This low is located a few hundred miles east of Bermuda. It is expected to drift west this weekend and then move north to start the work week. This is also not a threat to the U.S.
Eastern Atlantic: A tropical wave is expected to move off the coast of Africa on Monday. A low will form from this wave and move through the Atlantic. Development for this one will have to be monitored. This area is already at a medium chance for development after first being flagged as a low area Saturday morning.
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The factors for development
The main two factors we look at for tropical development are sea surface temperatures and wind shear. Wind shear is defined as changes in wind speed and direction as you move up in the atmosphere.
Tropical systems like warmer sea surface temperatures and do not like wind shear. The warmer the sea surface temperatures, the more likely the development. This is because the storm has plenty of fuel to pull from to grow.
For shear, the higher the shear, the harder it is for tropical systems to develop. These changes in wind speed and direction can lead to storms being weakened when they form, or potentially being shredded before they can even form. That is what happened last week. We had two high chances of development that moved into areas of strong shear, which killed them before they could even form.
And with the strong El Niño that is ongoing, shear is on the rise and spreading through the Atlantic. The map below shows the current wind shear with the areas of interest. Should these develop, they will have a lot of shear to deal with.
(MORE: What is wind shear?)
Tropics on the rise
We are in the ramp-up of the Atlantic Hurricane Season. The escalation begins in August and continues until peak hurricane season the second week of September. El Niño is ramping up, but that doesn’t guarantee no storms will form. It just hinders their chances.
It only takes one storm to make a hurricane season impactful.
Rob Shackelford is a meteorologist and climate scientist at weather.com. He received his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Georgia, studying meteorology and experimenting with alternative hurricane forecasting tools.