A new storm brewing in the Atlantic has a ‘good shot’ at taking Nadine’s spot over the weekend, hurricane experts have warned.
The storm, labeled Invest A95L, could hit Central America and Mexico on Saturday, bringing heavy rains and potential flooding to the area.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported Friday that there is a 50 percent chance it could become a tropical depression or Tropical Storm Nadine in the next 48 hours.
‘A short-lived tropical depression or storm could form before the system move inland over Belize and the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico on Saturday,’ the agency reported.
The environmental conditions in the northwestern Caribbean Sea could help the storm to become ‘better defined’ as it crosses to the north of eastern Honduras.
Meteorologists have suggested that the storm will ‘probably end up with a decent shot at Nadine [95L] being named and forming Friday night or Saturday morning.’
This comes after storm A94L, previously predicted to become Nadine, appeared to fizzle out in the Atlantic this week.
The chances for 95L to grow into a tropical storm has increased as of Friday morning thanks to upper-level high pressure developing over the area.
Upper-level high pressure removes the heat from over a storm by moving the air outward, lowering the pressure and increasing the wind speed.
When wind speeds reach 38 miles per hour, it moves into a tropical storm category and would then be named Nadine.
The storm has currently reached wind speeds of 30 to 35 miles and will likely continue to increase until it makes landfall tonight into tomorrow, according to a Fox Weather analysis.
Anthony Duarte, a meteorologist for Univision, said that ‘regardless of development, heavy rainfall is expected over Central America, Belize, the Yucatan Peninsula, and southern Mexico through the weekend.
‘This could trigger dangerous mudslides in higher terrain.’
Meteorologists reported that potential Nadine would be a ‘short-lived’ tropical storm and is not expected to impact Florida which is still recovering from Hurricanes Helene and Milton.
Fox Weather Hurricane Specialist Bryan Norcross said the dryer atmospheric conditions hovering over Florida and the Gulf of Mexico should protect the Sunshine State from tropical storm threats for the foreseeable future.
‘The disturbance still has a reasonably well-defined but broad circulation,’ Norcross said.
‘But dry air has not allowed thunderstorms to organize and persist, which in turn would tighten the circulation – the requirements for the tropical depression designation.’
The NHC is still tracking 94L and reported it will still reach the northeastern Caribbean islands but it’s slow development will keep it from growing into a tropical storm.
‘Showers and thunderstorms associated with a trough of low pressure located a couple of hundred miles east of the Leeward Islands remain disorganized,’ the NHC stated in an update on Thursday.
‘Some slow development is possible during the next couple of days as the disturbance moves quickly westward to west-northwestward around 20 mph,’ the agency added.
The storm should pass near the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico on Friday, then near Hispaniola and the southeastern Bahamas on Saturday.
Norcross advised that people still stay informed regarding 94L and said that it will reach the islands today and continue to the southeastern Bahamas, Haiti or eastern Cuba.
‘It’s not clear that the system will be identifiable by that time, but it will draw tropical moisture over the mountainous islands, bringing the possibility of flooding and mudslides.’
While the chances that storm system AL94 will become the next named storm are dwindling, the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season is far from over, experts warn.
The season runs through November 30, and conditions are still favorable for storm formation.
