Tropical update: Wave: 50% chance of tropical formation

With plenty of warm waters and low wind shear, the tropical wave moving west at about 15mph and located by the Cabo Verde islands on Friday could become a named system next week. Let's dig deeper into the details.

The tropical wave mentioned yesterday that was leaving Africa is not fully over the far eastern Atlantic waters. It will be coming up over very warm waters, and wind shear is expected to stay low over this region. The National Hurricane Center has increased its likelihood of developing into a tropical system within the next 7 days to 50%. The next name on the list is Bret.

It is important to remember that this tropical wave, at this moment, is just that tropical wave. By definition, tropical waves are still very disorganized and do not have a well-defined centered circulation. Models can show how a storm might move, but overall, models work best when there is actual data of them in the (computer) system. This means that without a well-defined center of circulation, models do not have a good grasp on a system, and there could be large errors in trajectories. The key point to remember is that models are in agreement on is that a system will be organized better over the central tropical Atlantic.

Eastern Caribbean islands should monitor this system closely in the coming days. We will be too!