Tropical Storm Fay Forms - FLHurricane.com

Looking at late night radar from San Juan and nearby surface observations, there appears to be a broad and weak surface circulation near or just north of the NE tip of Puerto Rico (as of 0600 UTC/2 a EDT). Base reflectivity radar scans suggest that the system remains poorly organized but does show trends toward organization, with a new mid-level vortex about 5000 - 8000 ft up forming on the NE tip of Puerto Rico near the surface circulation. If this continues and is not significantly hindered by land, it's possible that we are watching the formative stages of our sixth tropical depression and storm of the season.

Puerto Rico doesn't have the history that Hispaniola does as a tropical storm graveyard but it does have some fairly significant peaks in the middle of the island. It won't kill the disturbance but it could keep it from sufficiently organizing to let Hispaniola do a number on the disturbance. Overall, 92L is not quite as far north as I thought it might be earlier and that brings Hispaniola into the picture for changing the ballgame entirely. Ultimately, however, until it gets past Puerto Rico, I hesitate to make any significant calls here as the center can and will likely jump and reform a bit due to convective bursts and the like over the next day.

Some of the late night model runs have shifted west from the earlier ones that had shifted east, so given that plus the landmass uncertainty in the short term, now is as good of a time as any to reiterate to not take any one model run as truth. There will be fluctuations back and forth, particularly as models get a better handle on the upper level pattern (and blocking situation setting up in the western half of the US) that will steer 92L to wherever it is going to go. Nothing has changed from earlier that all from the central Gulf all the way to the southeast coast, Florida in particular, need to carefully watch the evolution of this storm over the next few days. First off, let's see what it does in the Greater Antilles -- and I pray that casualties in Hispaniola (and elsewhere) are minimized from the flooding that is likely to ensue.

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