Tropical Atlantic may be about to spring to life

Our Best Stories — Straight to Your Inbox!

Sign up for the Yucatán Roundup and get our biggest headlines once a week in your inbox. It's free and you can unsubscribe at any time.

AccuWeather graphic

An uptick in tropical activity in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean sea could affect the Yucatan Peninsula over the next couple of weeks, said AccuWeather meteorologists.

Weather forecasters are monitoring the Atlantic basin for changing conditions. Peak hurricane season begins just about now, in mid-August, lasting until mid-October.

“Indications are that inhibiting factors for tropical development, such as dry air, dust and strong wind shear over the Atlantic basin will start to relax during the week of Aug. 18-25,” according to Dan Kottlowski, an AccuWeather hurricane expert.

A pattern of extensive amounts of dry air and wind shear, with flare-ups of Saharan dust in recent weeks, is anticipated to continue into this weekend.

While this is not unusual during the middle of the summer, we are entering the period of the summer when moist air becomes more plentiful and the amount of dust and wind shear tends to diminish.

Tropical disturbances move off the coast of Africa every few days during the summer and into the autumn. This is called the Cabo Verde season, which is named for the group of islands off Africa’s west coast.

While waters are sufficiently warm enough to support development in this area from midsummer on, dry air, dust and wind shear keep most of these disturbances from developing into tropical depressions, tropical storms and hurricanes.

“How fast these inhibiting factors relax next week will determine if and when a particular disturbance develops,” Kottlowski said.

Source: AccuWeather

Yucatán Magazine
Yucatán Magazine
Yucatán Magazine has the inside scoop on living here. Sign up to get our top headlines delivered to your inbox every week.
- Advertisement -spot_img
AVAILABLE NOWspot_img
ADVERTISEMENTspot_img
Verified by ExactMetrics