Heavy rains continue for the Western Caribbean

An area of disturbed weather in the Western Caribbean is associated with a tropical disturbance (93L). This disturbance has not gotten better organized since yesterday, and is not expected to become a tropical depression, due to 20 knots of wind shear and close proximity to land. A QuikSCAT satellite pass at 6:30am EST today showed some strong winds of 40-50 mph offshore of Belize, but there was no surface circulation evident, and not even a shift of wind direction. 93L will drift westward and continue to bring heavy rains to Belize, Guatemala, the Yucatan, and Honduras over the next two days. about seven inches of rain has fallen in Belize City in the past 72 hours, and rainfall rates of an inch per hour (yellow color, Figure 2) were apparent last night from this storm.


Figure 1. Preliminary model tracks for 93L in the Caribbean.


Figure 2. Rainfall rates from NASA's TRMM satellite taken at 8:39pm EST Thursday November 2. The yellow colors correspond to rainfall rates of about 1 inch/hour (25.4 mm/hr).

Thingamabobbercane is gone today, having been destroyed by high wind shear and cold waters. There is nothing else of note to discuss, and the models are not forecasting any significant developments in the tropical Atlantic for the coming week.

Jeff Masters