Caribbean Blob: August 1, Update A

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome back to our irregularly scheduled program on the 2016 Atlantic Hurricane Season. I hope you had a very nice extended Intermission featuring plenty of cups of tea, a case or two of wine, a block or two of cheese, and a few tubs of ice cream. :-)

But now this pleasant interlude is over... we have a blob in the Caribbean! The NHC have not yet named him, but will do so shortly (they are sending a plane in to investigate soon). It already looks like Tropical Storm Earl (Grey Tea) to me - actually, I think he's already on the verge of being Hurricane Earl Grey Tea! He has strong convection (buckets of rain, wads of thunder) as you can see in both the visible and especially the infra-red satellite images:

He is near Jamaica and the center, around 16N, 75.5W I think, should cross to the south of the island tomorrow. Interestingly his circulation is stronger in the middle and upper troposphere compared to the lower troposphere, which is why they haven't named him yet. However, he does have circulation in the lower troposphere as well so I think they really should have already given him a name. Here is the circulation (vorticity) map from the mid-troposphere, and Earl is that red blob just to the southeast of Jamaica:

(Ahem, what do you mean you've forgotten what this vorticity map means?! Surely it's not been that long since I wrote about the troposphere and vorticity... ok, maybe it has. :-) If you have forgotten, you can check out the Science Alert! in this post.)

The most frequent question I received today is 'where is he going?' He is currently heading westward at 20mph. I had a quick look at the pressure fields and it looks like he will stay more-or-less on that westward track - possibly moving slightly southwest - heading towards central America for now. There is also a small chance that he will stall, but I am not very convinced that will happen - it's more likely that he will slow down in his rush to get across the Caribbean.

I think he will intensify though - the wind shear is looking fairly weak in front of him and the water temperatures are warm, with surface temperatures of around 29 deg C, and the upper 125-150m of the water column being warmer than 26.5 deg C. Plenty of warm water for any Tea to steep in!

If you are in Jamaica, it looks like you'll have a few buckets of rain, possibly the thundery edge of the storm and a bit more, so stay safe!

I'll be back tomorrow of course, by which time I expect to be talking about Earl Grey Tea.

Toodles for now,

J.

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DISCLAIMER: These remarks are just what I think/see regarding tropical storms - not the opinion of any organization I represent. If you are making an evacuation decision, please heed your local emergency management and the National Hurricane Center's official forecast and the National Weather Service announcements. This is not an official forecast. If I "run away, run away" (Monty Python), I'll let you know.