Weather watchers excited by new development.
All three systems are more or less along the same longitude around 40 degrees west of Greenwich. From north to south then;
Extratropical Storm ODETTE is still loafing about aimlessly, centred 550 miles south-east of Newfoundland. This will shortly begin moving slowly south. There is still a broad range of opinions/hopeless guesses as to the cyclone’s track and intensity in days to come but none are particularly scientific but more importantly, none involve any contact with land. I would expect this to dissipate by Monday.
A good 1,200 miles north-west of the Cape Verde Islands, what remained of tropical storm ROSE gave up the battle against upper level shear and dry air. What remains is little more than depression which will be absorbed into the present gentler pressure gradients of the east central Atlantic tonight.
Today’s weather-nerd centrefold is Tropical Depression Eighteen which is likely to be upgraded to a tropical storm as soon as I hit send to this daily update. Currently centred 900 miles north-east of the mouth of the Amazon, this developing cyclone is headed west at 18 knots. This has green lights ahead and conditions are favourable for this to become a hurricane, perhaps even a major one. Catastrophe enthusiasts amongst the meteorological community are expecting a cyclone with a peak hurricane severity index rating of 18 (6 for size and 12 for intensity) taken from a calculated prediction of winds gusting over 100 knots, but a fairly small windfield radius of under 100 miles. In my view, that may be conservative. The track is as yet uncertain but as things stand, likely to pass close to the north-east of the Caribbean towards the middle of next week. (Immediately prior to my hitting the send button, the National Hurricane Centre upgraded this to Tropical Storm SAM with a predicted peak as a category three hurricane. More tomorrow.)
Stand by for foul weather as tropical storm SAM intensifies in the west central Atlantic, otherwise, stand easy.
Image Patti Rhodes