Expecting Alex in the Caribbean

Forecasters on June 25 had given System 93L in the western Caribbean an 80 percent chance of developing into Tropical Depression Alex, and weekends seem to always birth tropical depressions. The GOES-13 satellite captured a visible image of both System 93L and a second low east of the Leeward Islands that has a much lesser chance of development this weekend.

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite called GOES-13 captured a visible image of System 93L and the second area of cloudiness and showers east of the Leewards in a satellite image on June 25 at 14:45 UTC (10:45 a.m. EDT). The satellite image was created by NASA’s GOES Project, located at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. GOES-13 is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

System 93L has become better organized today and upper-level winds are becoming more conducive for development, so tropical depression Alex will likely form later today or Saturday.

The second area that forecasters are watching this weekend is in the eastern Caribbean, east of the Leeward Islands. It’s a disorganized area of clouds and showers that is associated with a tropical wave that’s interacting with an upper-level trough. A trough is an elongated area of low pressure (and this one is in the upper level of the troposphere).

The National Hurricane Center only gives this system a 20 percent chance of development into a tropical depression over the next 48 hours. The low is moving northwest between 10 and 15 mph.