The U.S. National Hurricane Centre is monitoring four disturbances with tropical or sub-tropical potential in the Atlantic Ocean.
I am taking this opportunity to have a look at this very early stage of tropical cyclone tracking. The stages of monitoring tropical weather begin with weather disturbances. Often, these disturbances never become any more than minor weather events. Today, September 5, 2024, there are four disturbances being monitored in the Atlantic with varying degrees of potential to become “tropical.”
These disturbances have different characteristics but each have the potential to develop into a tropical depression. Two are considered to be a tropical wave, a low-pressure area moving from east to west in tropical regions. It can sometimes lead to the development of a more serious weather event. A tropical wave is also called an easterly wave. The other two are basically low-pressure systems worth keeping an eye on.
The low-pressure system closest to Canadian waters is a few hundred miles east of North Carolina. It’s causing some showers and thunderstorms far from its center. It might start to take on some features of a subtropical storm in the next couple of days as it moves northeast, staying off the coast of the northeastern U.S. However, once it reaches cooler waters by late Saturday, it’s unlikely to develop further.
The second, is a large low-pressure area in the eastern tropical Atlantic causing scattered and unorganized showers and thunderstorms. It could slowly develop over the next few days as it moves north or northwest. Storms that form in this region of the ocean sometimes track toward Canadian waters if they develop tropical characteristics.
This one is a tropical wave that is moving quickly west across the western Caribbean Sea at about 20 mph, creating scattered and unorganized showers and thunderstorms. It might develop into something more organized in a few days once it crosses Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and reaches the southwestern Gulf of Mexico.
There’s another tropical wave a few hundred miles east of the Lesser Antilles (the Lesser Antilles is located southeast of Puerto Rico), causing scattered and unorganized showers and thunderstorms. Strong winds high in the atmosphere will likely prevent it from developing much over the next few days as it moves west-northwest at 10 to 15 mph. However, by early next week, conditions could become more favourable for slow development as it moves northwest over the southwestern Atlantic.
If a disturbance takes becomes cyclonic with tropical characteristics it may become a tropical depression and is numbered. The disturbances mentioned here are referred to by numbers for descriptive purposes and are not meant to identify them, if the number of disturbances increases or decreases these numbers may be reassigned.
A numbered tropical depression is a tropical cyclone with maximum sustained wind speeds of 62 km/h (33 knots) or less. If a tropical depression continues to develop attaining maximum sustained winds of between 63km/h and 118 km/h it becomes a “full” tropical storm and is named.
