A look at the tropics

[Stormchaser16]

There are a few areas that I am concerned about upon looking at the tropics today. The first one that is closest to home would be the wave in the eastern Carribean. Looking at the data concerning this wave... I am currently not to enthrilled. While the system does have a lot of strogn convection, it appears to be disorganized and the convection is widely scattered. Also, I believe the northern edge of the convection is only there because it is being enhanced by a trough acis off to the north, where shear anomalies are around 25-30Kts. As the wave pushes westward it will break away from this trough axis and that is when I believe it has a better chance at developing. A quickscat look at the wave, shows that there is no hint currently of any closed low level circulation developing. The shear/water vapor imagery reveals that out ahead of the storm there is a more favorable environment in which this wave could develop. There is however a small pocket of dry air out ahead of the system, but it appears as that wont have too much of an affect on it just yet. Most of the models like this sytem and bring it on a more NW track as time goes in.

I would say, that if this sytem looks good tommorow, then slow development is possible by mid-late week. For this reason i give it a Level 1 classification.

Development standards:
Level0-Nothing is expected of the system,but it will be monitored for future interests
Level 1-Development not imminent, but possible
Level 2-Slow development possible
Level 3-Development likely

Already developed:
Level A-A weak system, no headaches
Level B-A moderate system
Level C-A healthy system
Level D-A very strong system

The other area that I am concerned about is the wave off of the African coast. This is a VERY healthy looking system at this point. But again it appears as it currently lacks a low level circulation. Development if any would be slow to occur, because shear values around the system seem to be forecasted as unfavorable. IF it develops now I would expect it to head more out to sea or at least NW. If it moves more west and holds together then it would be in a perfect environment for development and would have more of a chance of heading on a more westerly course. On sattelite imagery, there is some outflow on the south side of the system. And the cold cloud tops seem to be all together unlike the system in the eastern caribbean. If this wave holds together this strong convection for the next 12-24 hours, then I would say that development is imminent, but at this point, I am only giving it a Level 2 classification, because of the envrionment/lack of low level circulation/lack of good outflow.

In other areas, I don't see any major concerns.