WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Potential Tropical Cyclone 19 in the Caribbean is getting better organized and is expected to strengthen into a tropical depression sometime this week.
The area of unsettled weather, which is located between Jamaica and the southwestern Caribbean Sea, is expected to further strengthen into Tropical Storm Sara over the next couple days, and then eventually into a hurricane as it meanders around the Caribbean.
Hurricane and tropical storm watches were issued Wednesday for portions of Honduras and Nicaragua.
TRACKING THE TROPICS: Hurricane Center | Hurricane Guide
"What's fueling its organization in really the next few days is those warm sea surface temperatures in the Caribbean," WPTV First Alert Weather meteorologist Jennifer Correa said. "We're talking about water temperature at 86 degrees. Above average given the time of the year."
Steering currents are quite weak, so it will stay off Honduras for a couple of days before entering the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday.
By next week, a deepening trough may come down and pick it up and bring it northward, possibly turning the system toward the west coast of Florida.
"Eventually, a front picks it up and makes it turn over the Yucatan and into the Gulf of Mexico," Correa said. "So all of us, from the Gulf into the Caribbean, have to keep a watchful eye."
WPTV First Alert Weather chief meteorologist Steve Weagle said the Wednesday afternoon computer models have a dramatically weaker storm hitting Florida on Wednesday.
Weagle said the models have it first stalling over Honduras Friday to Sunday. That weakens it. In fact, some models never recover what was Sara.
A track 40 miles north of Honduras could mean the difference between a hurricane or a tropical storm hitting the state next week.
Weagle cautioned that it's still a long way out and it will change several times. It's still too early to know what impacts it will have on our area, but it needs to be watched.
The timing would be the middle of next week, so there's still a lot of time for changes and adjustments to the forecast models.
"Hurricane season goes all the way through the end of November. But hurricanes have formed and storms have formed in every month of the year," WPTV First Alert Weather meteorologist James Wieland said.
