00:00All right, joining us right now is AccuWeather lead, hurricane expert, Alex DaSilva.
00:05Alex, quickly here, the new update coming in from the National Hurricane Center.
00:10We were talking about the chaotic movement, but oftentimes in these very poorly organized storms,
00:16the center of circulation can jump around a little bit.
00:19Yeah, and indeed it has. It's already done that before in its life cycle,
00:23and it looks like the center has jumped north here over the last six hours or so.
00:28So the center, it doesn't like to be exposed. It likes to be underneath some convection.
00:33So sometimes when you have a big blowup of convection like we did overnight on the northern side of the storm,
00:38it kind of likes to get underneath that because that can allow the storm to strengthen.
00:42So we saw a little bit of a jump to the north here over the last six hours or so.
00:46But, you know, I do stress some caution that we could see that center jump around a little bit more,
00:52especially since this storm, like you mentioned, is so disorganized and is slow moving.
00:56The movement of the storm can be a little bit chaotic here over the next couple of days.
01:01So we'll just have to watch to see if that's more of a trend or if that's just a little bit of a jump.
01:06That jump north, though, doesn't exactly put it in more favorable conditions for development
01:11because that's what we've been talking about all week.
01:14Fifteen degrees north, that's the line that goes through Nicaragua and Honduras
01:18and then separates the windward from the leeward islands and the lesser Antilles.
01:22Once you get north of 15 degrees north, closer to Jamaica, you have a lot of dark purple.
01:28That means higher wind shear.
01:29And that's what's stopping Melissa from getting better organized.
01:33Yeah, indeed you do.
01:34I mean, look at all this dark purple across the northern Caribbean right now.
01:36And if the center did jump north, which it looks like it did,
01:39that's actually going to put it in a little bit stronger wind shear, at least in the short term.
01:43We do think that starting later today, the wind shear should begin to decrease a little bit.
01:48And then certainly over the weekend, that's when we really expect the wind shear to decrease.
01:52And that's why the forecast still calls for this to rapidly intensify over the weekend or early next week,
01:58somewhere in the vicinity of Jamaica.
02:01Now, the concern we've already had, and we've really been talking about this since September,
02:06we were afraid if anything could get into the Caribbean, we'd have a huge problem
02:10because these are the water temperature anomalies, Alex.
02:13So that's about, what, three to five degrees above historical average.
02:17Historically, we're usually looking at around 84, 85 degrees, right?
02:21Yeah, indeed you are.
02:22But we're looking at temperatures now in the mid to upper 80s.
02:26And it's not just the sea surface temperatures.
02:28It's the ocean heat content, how deep that water extends.
02:31Normally, if this storm was outside of the Caribbean and it was moving so slowly,
02:35the hurricane would be able to mix up some cooler waters to the surface,
02:40which could actually weaken the storm.
02:41But we don't think that's going to be much of the case with this one,
02:44even though it's moving so slowly, because there's so much deep warm water
02:48that even though the future hurricane is expected to move so slowly,
02:52it's just going to be replaced that water with just even more warm water that's underneath the surface.
02:57So I don't think what we call upwelling, that water coming to the surface,
03:00is going to have much of an impact on the eventual intensity of the storm,
03:05which is why we still do expect this to become a major hurricane despite the slow motion of the storm.
03:12That jump to the north has kind of kept us saying, well, that northeast track, that north track,
03:20the American modeling is still showing that.
03:22No one has really believed that here in the office,
03:25but it still keeps it a little on the possible side.
03:28So that's why we have that far east window between Jamaica and Haiti as we head toward the weekend.
03:34But right now we're going in between that outlier and then the outlier to the south and west,
03:39which would say more of a west track, keeping it further south of Jamaica.
03:45Yeah, but certainly a more northern shift here in the short term would be a little bit more concerning for Jamaica, I think.
03:52So we're going to have to watch these trends for the rest of the day today and into tomorrow.
03:56Is the center going to jump around more or is this going to be a trend that continues?
04:01We'll have to see.
04:02But certainly a more northern trend in the short term could mean that Jamaica could potentially be more in the crosshairs
04:08for more of a direct hit from this storm as it moves closer.
04:12So we're just going to have to watch and see over the next couple of days.
04:15But nevertheless, again, we still do want to stress that we still do expect this to become a major hurricane this weekend or early next week.
04:22Jamaica, Cuba. I mean, just the preponderance of evidence suggests that's the landing spot.
04:29But we still can't rule out a close encounter, although very unlikely we still can't rule out a close encounter with the keys in south Florida.
04:37Yeah, I think the way that that would happen is the storm would have to get pretty far west.
04:41It would have to hang more on the western side of the cone.
04:44It's still possible, so we still need to watch for it.
04:47But I think the chances are pretty low of an east coast hit.
04:50But nevertheless, there are some scenarios that take the storm further west into south Florida
04:55or even into portions of the east coast of the United States, mid-Atlantic states.
04:59So I think there's very few models showing that, which is why we think that a track off the east coast is most likely.
05:06It's still going to be close enough to bring big-time waves and dangerous rip currents.
05:10But right now, the preponderance of evidence shows that the storm should stay off the east coast.
05:16But we still need to keep a close eye out.
05:18Really quickly, we're going to show the impacts.
05:20The rain.
05:21Haiti.
05:22More about the rain than the wind, unless it takes that turn to the north.
05:26And we may be updating these rainfall totals, Alex, to get more rain in Jamaica if it takes that track.
05:32And then, I mean, there is the real problem with the major hurricane, with the winds from Jamaica toward Cuba.
05:40So huge impacts, devastating impacts here.
05:43Jamaica into Cuba moving forward.
05:46AccuWeather lead hurricane expert, Alex DeSilva.
05:48Alex Denford, joining us here on AccuWeather Early.
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