Calmer seas take us into the end of October in the Atlantic

Headlines

  • No tropical activity is expected over the next week in the Atlantic.
  • The first days of November remain likely to be our next window for possible development in the western Caribbean, but details are sketchy.

Quiet for now

As we begin to slowly hit the final weeks of hurricane season, things are behaving relatively normally right now. We don’t have any activity expected over the next week, and that should get us to the end of October with Oscar as the last used name on the list.

Caribbean noise remains

Modeling does continue to perk up the western Caribbean beginning later next week and into the early days of November, however. A sloppy plate of spaghetti exists on the GFS ensemble through the end of its run today, with numerous ensemble members trying to develop something in that region and either keep it buried there or lift it north-northeast toward Jamaica, Cuba, or Hispaniola.

Model noise continues to open November in the Caribbean. For now, it does not appear to be U.S. bound, but interests in the western Caribbean should monitor upcoming forecasts. (Weathernerds.org)

Now, the GFS model as shown above does have a tendency to get a bit overeager on the tails of hurricane season about development in the Caribbean. A bigger surprise would be if the model showed nothing here. That being said, this has some legs via broad background support for development over the western half of the basin, as well as some other less-robust but nevertheless present model support from the European model. I’ve written a lot and been quoted a good bit in other media publications about the increasing AI model usefulness we’ve seen this year. For what it’s worth, the AIFS too shows this kind of broad outcome right now, but it is being quite aggressive in pushing a cold front into the Gulf of Mexico around this time which is likely kicking this northeast and out to sea quickly. It’s more aggressive than the GFS and Euro with the front, so that will be something to monitor.

For now, we’ll keep babysitting and come back at you with more on Friday.