9AM Update 31 July 2007
A special disturbance update has upgraded Tropical Depression #3 into Tropical Storm Chantal. Still moving away from the US. Regular advisories for Chantal will begin at 11AM.

99L is not looking as good as it was yesterday, but if it persists through the day it still has a chance to develop within the next few days. For this one, watch to see if it kicks back up in the evening tonight. It managed to pull in dryer air, despite being having a lot of moisture yesterday. So currently, chances are dropping that 99L will develop into anything, but it is still important to watch for persistence during the day.

Original Update
There is a very late July development in the form of tropical Depression #3, which has formed in the eastern Atlantic. Also, a wave east of the Caribbean islands is something to watch. The tropics are waking up to an interesting start to the month of August.

Tropical depression three is moving away from US land areas and should not affect them. It is moving over warmer waters and has a chance to become the third Tropical Storm of the season, if it does it will be called Chantal. Shortly after it will likely become Extratropical, so it would be short lived. Newfoundland in Canada will have to deal with a tropical or extratropical system zooming by, however.

Also a system is being watched east of the Leeward Caribbean Islands. This is being referred to as Investigation 99L.

Chances for Tropical Development of Wave East of the Caribbean (99L)
Code:


(forget it) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (sure thing)
            [-----*--------------]

There is some chance for development over the next few days, folks in the Eastern Caribbean islands will want to watch this one. The usual pattern is, if it remains weak it will likely continue westward and have trouble gaining strength, at least initially. However, if it strengthens more as it approaches the Caribbean islands it may tend to move it a bit further north. At this point, models are a bit still too immature to gather any good information with. A day or two more of persistence will be what to really watch in this regard.

Intensity wise, 99L is looking very healthy, but still has a few negative factors associated with it, but this one has more positive factors than negative. If it persists (likely) and a low level circulation starts happening, it could be sooner rather than later. The atmosphere to the west of it is fairly wet, and shear isn't too bad, so conditions are there for it, now persistence is the key to it. And could develop within the next day or so, if it holds through the day on the 31st, then this will be the first potential system that deserves some serious attention this year.

When it arrives in the Eastern Caribbean it will have to deal with slightly higher shear, and more hostile conditions for development, so that may cause this system not to develop so much.

99L is a surprise from the thinking of late last week, our eyes were glancing more toward the gulf, while this wave kicked up.

{{StormLinks|3|03|3|2007|1|Tropical Storm Chantal}}

{{CHC}}

{{StormLinks|99L|99|4|2007|2|99L (Area East of Caribbean)}}

{{StormCarib}}

More to come on both systems as needed...