Tropical Storm Wilma Forms in the Western Caribbean

well, the pattern is one of NAO negative and SOI stuck positive.. so it's zonal ridging with a progressive mid-latitude pattern but blocking to the north. the tendency for low pressure over the east should effectively shunt wilma out into the atlantic after it crosses florida (which is the most likely possibility right now... it'll have to start moving northeast at a pretty low latitude to miss, and there's significant ridging moving in place for the short term). the models were all going west earlier.. now they're trained back across florida. none are showing wilma phasing into the westerly flow and zipping up the coast. unless that solution reappears, then the best bet is that it will arc eastward as it moves north and pass well off the east coast. a lot of the model guidance has shifted southward across florida with the more dramatic recurvature. i'd say it'll probably stabilize back to the north... with the way typhoon kirogi is curving past japan after being stuck to the south for days.. the teleconnection would be for a hurricane to zip across florida about 6-7 days later (at least that's what the rough average is by the winter longwave pattern.. not quite there yet). kirogi is 'past', so the cross-florida track would be roughly centered on october 22nd-23rd. kirogi intensified quite a bit sunday, which wasn't entirely expected... better hope wilma doesn't mimic the behavior as it bears down on the west coast of florida. ssts in the southeastern gulf aren't quite what they were in august, so i wouldn't expect quite the behavior. i'd guess that the storm's intensity will run somewhere between what michelle in 2001 and lili in 1996 had as they impacted cuba--more likely closer to lili. it'll probably be a substantial hurricane, nonetheless. target window is still cedar key to key west, with a special emphasis on the sarasota to naples swath.
elsewhere in the basin not much doing. there's a surface swirl near 23/41.. remnant of that invest from a few days ago. it has flashed the odd thunderstorm today, but is more of a remnant-type low than anything. pretty stable environment, but shear conditons are passable, so if it flares up again it'll have a chance at being a tropical cyclone.
gfs indicated pattern in the long range shows the potential for additional pattern-pulse type development in the caribbean. nothing to latch onto yet as it probably doesn't have wilma's exit strategy figured out yet. if there are greek alphabet systems in the offing, then none are exciting too much model interest.
HF 0606z18october

Edited by HanKFranK (Tue Oct 18 2005 06:22 AM)

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