Good morning Bay Islands. I’m not going to do a photo of the day today because there is slightly more to worry about from our potential tropical storm. The US National Hurricane Center still only gives it a 40 percent chance of becoming a tropical depression. The big change this morning is the US GFS model forecasts this storm to slow down, coming toward the islands on Saturday evening and giving it time to strengthen.
Let’s start with the Euro. This is the best case scenario for us. It shows a tropical wave never really getting any rotation going and just bringing us thundershowers Thursday night into Friday.
Compare that to the GFS forecast. It shows the storm slowing down and not getting here until Saturday evening. That gives it time to strengthen. The bright side is that this forecast only shows the storm becoming a weak tropical storm as the center moves just to our north. This would give us wind gusts around 30 mph and the center of the storm would be around 40 mph. The National Hurricane Center agrees that the Western Caribbean, where we are, has a good atmosphere for a storm to strengthen, and when that happens, how much it intensifies is hard to predict. So keep an eye on this forecast for the next couple of days. If the storm does slow down, we do need to be prepared for a storm this weekend.
The German ICON doesn’t predict it to slow as much as the GFS, but it still has a borderline tropical depression/tropical storm passing just north of us sometime Friday.
Near term forecast. For as much excitement as we have in the tropics, our forecast for the next couple of days is pretty boring. We continue to have a small chance for an overnight or early morning shower, though that hasn’t happened for most of us the last couple of nights. Winds and seas will continue to be mild, coming from the east at 7-12 mph and seas 1-2 feet.
Tides continue to run on the high side as we near new moon. Have a great week!
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