Pattern Shift Next Week Watching Northwest Caribbean

We have been stuck in this wet pattern thanks to a ridge off the East Coast of the US and a trough in the Central Gulf States that extends southward into the Caribbean. The resulting southerly flow has been sending moisture northward for the last several days and this is likely to continue into the weekend.

GFS UPPER AIR FORECAST SUNDAY MAY 20, 2018

The problem up until now is that the Atlantic ridge has been too strong which has minimized the impact of the northern jet stream in Canada. Normally this would dip southward far enough and move weather systems along. It appears that this is about to change next week as the northern jet streams strengthens. This allows weather systems to move along and the continuous flow of moisture from the south gets cut off for awhile at least. There is likely to be another cold front late Tuesday or early Wednesday moving through with thunderstorms ahead of it on Tuesday. The resulting pattern shift does leave a weakness in the upper flow from the Central Gulf States Southward into the Caribbean.

GFS UPPER AIR FORECAST THURSDAY MAY 24TH 2018

The GFS model has been developing a tropical system 4 times a day every day for the last 2 weeks in the 11-16 day time frame. Up until now it has never gotten inside day 10 so every day it has been essentially a day later. No other model confirmed this idea. However now we do see all the models showing this weakness and at least hinting at some development later next week. What does argue against this is climatology since there have only been 2 dozen tropical storms in the Month of May since 1851! The upper air however suggests that something could develop in the Northwest Caribbean later next week so we will be watch this through the weekend and into next week to see how it trends. Right now there is no mention of this at all by the National Hurricane Center since it isn’t even inside 5 days so I do not believe this should be anyone’s concern at this point.

In the meantime we have more rain in the forecast and JOESTRADAMUS has more on this as well.