UPDATED! Invest 99L in Atlantic Heading Towards Caribbean. Subtropical Storm Ernesto Forms in the North Atlantic. Are There Signs in the Atlantic That Soon There May Be Something to Watch? Models Imply... Climo Implies... Waiting...Flooding Trinidad and Tobago From Last Tropical Wave

Invest 99L Forms in the Atlantic.

Headed towards the Islands.

Caribbean Bound?

And like that there's something to watch.

NHC watching it.

Models running.

20% in 5 days.

Mike's site is filled with maps and cones.

www.spaghettimodels.com

99L will move W to WNW.

Ernesto Headed N and then NE.

Models below for Invest 99L

www.tropicaltidbits.com

The issue as always with any system in this location is that shear is usually strong at the gateway to the Caribbean. As August moves into September this shear naturally lessens making the Caribbean a more possible location for tropical trouble. Usually if a storm has not formed before the Islands it's hard to get it going later though often storms like Harvey limp along until they get to warmer water and better conditions. Hurricanes like Harvey are rare and don't come along every year, it's just an example and reminder. This is the wave I mentioned earlier today that throughout the day has grown in size convective wise and has become harder and harder to ignore. Note not all yellow circles become Invests immediately so that should be a point of reference to concerns down the road if this develops.

As I said earlier today at the bottom of this blog...

...the last wave slammed into Trinidad and Tobago.

Much flooding was a result of that wave.

You can see 99L entering stage right below.

Another view below.

Stay tuned and keep reading.

Below Ernesto discussion is wave discussion IE 99L

You can see the Mimic Loop below.

But this image shows how the environment is moist..

..and currently favorable to future development.

That's a solid ITCZ above.

The loop is at the end of this blog from earlier today.

When I was discussing the wave that became 99L

Track below.

Where is it going?

Far away from the East Coast.

On it's way to England, Ireland and beyond.

It's been very warm in North Europe this summer.

All you really need to know is below.

On the map for a few days.

It's a statistic.

That means we move on to the F name.

Lot's of named storms this year...

...yet nothing much to write home about.

That's good for the Islands who are rebuilding this year.

Actually blue tarps cover homes in Florida still.

Note this isn't expected to be a Tropical Storm.

Subtropical to Extratropical.

It's clear up there in the North Atlantic.

Will the luck of the Caribbean Islands continue?

Looking due South o  Ernesto you see another area.

They almost mirror each other in ways.

It's worth noting that the last strong wave...

... made landfall in Trinidad and Tobago.

We didn't hear much about it.

We've been dealing with flooding in the Mid Atlantic Region.

But even without a name tropical waves cause misery.

Patterns in the short term repeat.

Eventually waves become Invests.

Invests often become Tropical Depressions.

August tuns into September.

In the Miami area we watch the Caribbean.

We are the gateway to the Caribbean.

Many of our friends come from the Islands.

Much of Miami is made up of people who came from there.

Phil Ferro reflects this in his tweets.

He and others are always watching the Caribbean Weather.

This is what we call a Wave Train.

Before named storms we have tropical waves.

You can see two things in the loop above.

The tropical lifeline in the N ATL for Ernesto

The active ITCZ moving West...

Part of it lifts WNW/NW towards Cuba/Florida/Bahamas

The beat goes on....

Even if models don't "see" anything forming.

Waves become stronger, time moves on.

Keep Watching.

The GFS is showing lowered pressures down the line.

Climo almost always wins.

I'll admit I thought playfully Ernesto should be a Caribbean Storm.

But in truth Climo shows it's face around August 25th.

MJO is moving into that area for a brief visit.

Stay tuned.

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter

Ps Prayers for those in Italy trying to dig through the debris to find the bodies and find the reason that the bridge there fell down. Bridges don't usually fall down except in nursery rhymes that were really allegory for political discussion. King George =  Humpty Dumpty. It's scary, terrifying and sad that this beautiful bridge simply "fell down" during a "violent storm" and much has been made of the weather. Could the weather or a lightning strike specifically hit a weakened part of the bridge or is this an explosion as some have said vs lightning. People argue online the poor maintenance of structures in Europe due to EURO budget restraints, mean Tweets by a politician in Germany with regard to the tragedy in Italy; even whispers of terrorism have been heard in the wind as usually someone goes there. What really happened will be figured out down the road but for now they have moved from rescue to recovery of bodies. 

Could weather really have played a part in this or was it a coincidence?