Tracking the Tropics: The latest on Invest 94-L, other possible developments

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Under log Central Florida. I’m West two meteorologist Eric Burress and from Savannah, Georgia WJCL 22 chief meteorologist Jeremy Nelson Eric. I like the backdrop. So give everyone *** heads up what’s going on. Yeah. Yeah. So, um we just got hit with hurricane Milton. Um and my internet is still out at the house. So, uh the only place that I can get *** decent signal is out here and I can’t even promise that uh tracking the tropics is going to be the smoothest thing you’ve ever seen. So, understand. Um I’m waiting, the only reason I didn’t go to like *** Starbucks or to the office to do this is because I’m waiting for the internet guy to come out because apparently the issue is on my end. So just bear with us if there’s any technical glitches, we’re going to do the best that we can today. Yeah, I know. Um, after Helene hit uh the Savannah area about two days without power, which in the grand scheme of things compared to others that was pretty quick to return. But the internet uh that took *** couple more days. So, uh yeah, these things definitely happen and it’s understandable. So, uh, we’ll do our best to get around that. But, uh, let’s talk about what’s going on. Yeah. So right now, uh, basically looking out at the Atlantic and, and really happy to report Jeremy that there are no named storms out there, there are *** couple of areas of interest to watch. The first area of interest is invest 94 and to give you an idea of where this is on the right side, that’s the Cabo Verde Islands, which are just off the coast of Africa. So we are way out in the middle of nowhere. *** little bit of convection today around invest 94 there was no convection yesterday. This is an area of interest. It has *** low s 30% likelihood of developing over the next two days time, but *** medium 60% likelihood over the next seven days time that blob is where the hurricane center believes that this would form. Um And, and it’s important to note because at first glance, without context, this certainly does look like *** scary trajectory. But thankfully, atmospherically, Jeremy, it does not look like this should be *** threat to the United States. Yeah. And each uh model run that comes in, it doesn’t uh seem to be very impressive and then it’s kind of uh even hard to form where, where the low uh may eventually form and then some kind of peel *** piece of energy off to the north, strengthen it and others uh sort of meander it in that trajectory you see there. So, uh as of right now, I would say is *** very, very low concern. But um, certainly something we monitor again, as you mentioned, probably just scary looking at the um kind of that orange shaded area versus what the reality may be of this. Right? So the Hurricane Center issues this product to let you know where they think it’s going to form. But the computer models that are running, I think, give the perspective, which is that yes, over the next seven time it does kind of follow that like west northwest trajectory. But about the time that he gets around Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, there’ll be *** cold front in the vicinity which should either dive this south and weaken it or pick it up and recurve it and keep it out to sea. But, uh, Jeremy, as you mentioned, the models aren’t really going gung ho with this either way. So there’s not *** significant concern, at least as of right now, but it’s definitely something to watch. Yeah. And also at least for my area, something I wanna bring up here and I’m gonna look over to the side because I know as of yesterday, our water temperature along the southeast coast line up by my area was down to 73 degrees and this morning it was very cool. We have temps that are headed into the forties the next couple nights. Um, so our water temperatures are going to start dropping fast. Most of the water temperatures are now 72 to 73 degrees and that would not be, uh, conducive to tropical development. So, uh, we’ll kind of, uh, wait and see how that, uh, plays out in the days ahead. So, uh, water temperatures for us right now, uh, not looking, uh, uh, too concerning as they start to cool down. So if it would take *** turn to the north, it may start to weaken. Yeah. So little by little, you know, we’re transitioning into this more autumn type weather pattern. So that, that is certainly good news. There is *** second area of interest. This is the area that I feel like broke the internet. So Milton wasn’t even off the coast of Florida. I was still in continuous coverage. People were still flooding in Florida and the social media hype machine was looking at several runs of computer models that had this storm system kind of blowing up and moving our direction this week. And then somebody on the internet had the great idea of let’s find *** cone from an old storm, share it and really scare people. I had to, I had to post about that Jeremy. I know you saw thought and, and, and we kind of chatted *** little bit about it. Um which is crazy that people are just trying to hype and, and come up with fake stuff. But, but anyway, so they did that. Ok. So there’s that nothing developed, but there is an area that we are kind of watching. So let me take you down here to the Caribbean Sea and you can see there’s some moisture down that area. Um, it has *** low end chance of forming over the next seven days time. We’re looking at *** 30% chance. But that said, if it forms most of the models kind of loop it around and keep it around. Belize Central America and Mexico, Jeremy. Yeah. So that one, and if we’re going to see something developed this time of year, it needs to be where the water is warm. So as I was mentioned, Southeast Coast, not *** favorite area, especially the later we get into this month, but the water down in the Caribbean and parts of the Gulf still very warm. So those are kind of your uh areas that you really monitor uh middle end of October and then in November, water starts to cool in most spots. Yeah. Yeah. So we’re watching this, we’re watching all the different areas to kind of get an idea of what’s going on. But the good news is both of these areas do not look overwhelmingly concerning for the United States. Now we’re still very much in hurricane season, right? It’s October the 15th, we’ve got like *** little mini peak, mid October, but you do notice that those numbers for named systems come down looking at the November December time frame and of course, hurricane season runs through the end of November though. We have had named storms each and every month of the year. Yeah. And I mean, *** couple of years ago we had *** busy November so we’ll see what’s in store come, uh, this November, but usually it’s about every other year that we see *** named storm during uh the month of November. So, uh last year we did not have one, maybe this year. We will, we’re at 13 named storm so far this season. But I think it’s all about kind of what has happened with those storms because we’ve had *** lot of, *** lot of landfalls along the west coastline. Yeah. Yeah. So let’s take *** look as *** matter of fact, Jeremy. So this is the landfall map and the hotspot zones that we came out with on March the first for our hurricane forecast. Um You’re the statistician of the two of us. So why don’t you get into some of the n uh numbers that you kind of uh looked up? Yeah. So, uh the lines that you’re looking at there, um The one that is *** little bit closer to Myrtle Beach, that was *** uh potential tropical cyclone that was not named. So we won’t count that in ours, but we just want to kind of show anything that’s bumped into the land. So I believe we’re, uh, five of six landfalls, uh, are in the red areas and the one that is not is Barrel. So we had Barrel. Um, what else do we, uh, Debbie made two landfalls? Big Band and then it, uh, bent back out over Savannah and then curved back up into South Carolina. Um, of course, we had Milton most recently and then, uh, was it, or Francine? He Helene and Francine? Yeah, Helene and, and, uh, Francine. So, and that went into, uh, Louisiana and then of course, uh, uh, last week. So it’s been, it’s been, it’s been fairly busy. Um, and when we look at the numbers, certainly, um, the ace numbers will, will tell the story. I think it’s really interesting though because we went years without seeing like hurricanes make landfall on the United States. Jeremy. And, and I think it’s kind of interesting that, uh, this year alone, we’ve had so many landfall named storm. So it just kind of shows you, you know, there’s, there’s these cycles of sorts and, and that’s kind of part of what we get into, but just within the last three months, you know, my area, your area, we’ve had, we’ve had some landfalls around from Helene and Debbie over to Milton. So, um, the, you know, there’s what goes around comes around, I suppose you could say. Yeah. And also within that, um, Helene and Debbie back on March, the first we, uh, showed the time frame, uh, potential systems, parts are tattered and those two are tied together and you can look at their, uh, landfall locations and they were, uh, uh, very close to each other. So those were at least my area of the three that really had high impact for your. Yeah. Yeah, it’s, it’s, um, the, the numbers have added up. Um, I think we did *** pretty decent job with our hurricane season forecast and uh yeah, yeah, sorry. You, you cut out there for *** minute. So I I just kind of we’re, we’re battling technical issues. It is what it is. Um But yes, you can, you can very clearly see we’ve had several landfalls. Um Most of which hit our, our hotspots and uh in the time frames that we had called for and to that point too, let’s just add, we are now into *** new part of our cycling weather pattern. Jeremy. Yeah. So each fall, at least the method we use, especially once we get past about October the 10th or that’s just kind of ***, *** date range that we use. Uh We look for the new pattern that starts to set up and we really start to focus mid to late October through November and then all the way through winter. Uh are we going to see lows travel across uh parts of the Gulf of Mexico uh down maybe near Florida off the southeast coast? Line and then we start to gather that data in future cycles. Where do those lows go? And then we put that all together and we make our uh forecast that comes out on March the first. That’s *** very simplified, simplified version of it. It’s more complex than that. But um so far in the initial stages here, we haven’t really had any um lows passed by that uh would peak our interest obviously. Um Milton, we think is uh more old than new pattern though. At least that’s kind of my opinion of it. It’s something we will, we’ll watch closely. Yeah. And, and *** lot of people like Courtney literally just asked that and, and I think that that’s *** question that everybody is having like Milton fit the old pattern. We didn’t include the date because it was at the very, very, very, very end of the old pattern, it was in that overlap period. So the question is, is it just kind of *** fading signal from the old pattern or does it also show up in this new pattern? So we’ll know that in the next few months and certainly Jeremy, you and I will, will chat about that and be very, very open if we see that. Um, I, I had messaged back and forth with uh Gary *** little bit and his, his thoughts were kind of things that fit into that time frame can kind of be part of both patterns So we’ll have to see how that plays out. Yeah. And the good thing is, I mean, we’ll have *** good, probably at least two cycles.