Bryan Norcross: Looking at the end of this week for tropical development in the Caribbean

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(FOX Weather)

Updated at 10:00 AM ET on Sunday, October 27, 2024

One of those broad low-pressure areas is likely to form over the southern Caribbean Sea this week. There is broad agreement among various computer predictions that a gyre-type system will develop, but there is little consensus about what will happen next.

Consider the Central American Gyre (CAG) that we have encountered several times this year. This is a version of the same type of large diameter circulation, but centered over the water between Central America and Colombia. And like the CAG, it could eventually consolidate into an organized tropical depression or tropical storm.

Hostile upper winds will blow across the Gulf of Mexico and the northern Caribbean for most of this week, leaving the only possible development area far south. However, as the pattern develops next weekend, some long-range computer forecasts show a more favorable environment for the development of an organized tropical system.

Area to watch in the Caribbean Sea this coming week.

(National Hurricane Center/NOAA)

The National Hurricane Center at this point has a chance of at least a low-range tropical depression forming over the next seven days. As always, there is great uncertainty when a system has not even formed yet.

There is even greater uncertainty that an organized system could find itself in if it develops around next weekend. A track north cannot be ruled out, although a weak system meandering into the Caribbean seems about as likely. In any case, we will keep an eye on developments all week.

If an organized tropical system develops and strengthens to the point of being named, it will become Tropical Storm Patty.