AccuWeather's lead hurricane expert, Alex DaSilva, explains how conditions could be favorable for the season's first hurricane to develop over the next few days.
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00:00getting ready for our first hurricane of the hurricane season. Joining me
00:04right now is Accuweather lead hurricane expert Alex DeSilva. Alex, let's get
00:09straight out to the satellite picture here. We'll begin with the infrared
00:13satellite picture. And certainly when we put this things put this in the
00:17motion, clearly this is getting better organized. Explain. It certainly is
00:23Bernie. And you know what? This is the end of june. And typically we really
00:26don't look this far out in the Atlantic to see development. However,
00:30a robust wave came off of Africa a couple of days ago. It's in a pretty
00:34good environment right now. And we've seen this thing uh escalate here over
00:38the last 24 hours. And by the way, if this thing develops today, this would
00:42be one of the earliest systems to develop this far east that we've ever
00:46seen. Let's take a look at the water vapor loop. Of course, we always look
00:50at two things. You talked about the water temperature. That's not a
00:53problem. Plenty warm enough. It's almost Alex and we've seen systems like
00:58this before. It almost as if it is pushing the dry air away and creating
01:04its own little area for development. Yeah, these things can certainly create
01:09their own environment. They can kind of create like a bubble around them and
01:12you see the clockwise flow at the top of the storm there. Those are the high
01:16cirrus clouds that essentially shoves any dry air away from the storm. And
01:20we're seeing that right now. Now I want to point your attention here to that
01:23area that dip in the jet stream to the northwest of the storm. We call that an
01:27upper level trough. Now, wind shear 95% of the time is bad for these tropical
01:33systems because it can share them apart. However, if this area of sheer kind of
01:39lifts to the north at the right timing, it can actually help to vent the system
01:44and strengthen the system before it gets to the islands. We've seen this a
01:47couple of times. The closest example I can think is back to Hurricane Lee. A
01:52couple of years ago, we saw this thing, um, you know, you know, vent the
01:56tropical system and it rapidly intensify. I'm not saying that's what's
01:59gonna happen here because it's all has to do with the timing of how when the
02:02storm gets there. But this is something we're gonna definitely have to watch.
02:06You mentioned that I've noticed this and this has been very persistent that
02:10trough or that the tuttegees called it or trough lifting to the north. I want
02:14you to see this as we go in the wind shear here. First of all, let's take a
02:20look. Water temperatures there are plenty warm enough. Alex, we've been
02:23talking about that over the last couple of days. But here's what's happening.
02:27Watch that dark purple area. Here's where we are on friday. We're gonna
02:31play this through and then you know, by saturday and sunday, your concern is
02:36being justified as we take a look at that wind shear, that light purple
02:40starting to get right toward the islands by sunday. Yeah, you can see
02:44that dark blue kind of lifting to the north again. That is that area that dip
02:48in the jet stream, lifting to the north, giving this thing potentially a
02:51pocket of very favorable winds to work with before it gets to the islands.
02:55Right now we're forecasting it to be a tropical storm by the time it gets to
02:58the islands. But I am growing more and more concerned that if this trough
03:02lifts out at the right time, this thing could intensify into a hurricane before
03:06reaching those islands. Now it's early in the game, Alex, but given the
03:09weather pattern that we see this big upper level high across the Atlantic,
03:13we could start ruling out some areas along in the United States for impacts
03:18from this system. Yeah, I think the east coast is pretty much in the clear.
03:22You never want to completely clear them, but right now it does look like an area
03:25of high pressure is going to build in off the southeast coast and essentially
03:29just keep this thing trucking on to the west. Now, once it gets to the western
03:33caribbean, it could move up into the gulf of Mexico, but it could also be
03:37shoved into central America. We're just going to have to see how exactly that
03:41high pressure plays out again. That's more than seven days away still. So
03:46some concerns here. Here's the accurate eyepath. By the way, we're the
03:49only ones that are showing an eyepath this early. Notice that we use models
03:53here to forecast the weather. The models don't do the forecasting. Alex,
03:58you're concerned that that eight a.m. Point on monday could be a hurricane.
04:03Absolutely. We're gonna have to watch this very, very closely here over the
04:06next couple of days.