While the tropical Atlantic is largely void of tropical systems, except for a feature near Bermuda, there are a few disturbances drifting across the eastern Pacific and at least one has a significant chance at developing into a tropical depression or storm over the next few days.
“None of the tropical disturbances, should they develop pose a direct threat to Mexico, Central America or Hawaii,” according to AccuWeather’s top hurricane expert Dan Kottlowski.
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| This image of the eastern Pacific was taken early Saturday morning, July 4, 2020, and shows a series of tropical disturbances from Central America (right) to southeast of Hawaii (left). (NOAA/GOES-West) |
One of the features of interest was located a few hundred miles southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico, and was moving toward the west-northwest around 10 miles per hour and has about a 30% chance of evolving into a tropical depression or storm.
In order for a depression to develop, there must be sustained winds about a circular motion with wind speed usually at or above 25 mph, but not to exceed 38 mph. In order for a tropical storm to be acknowledged, sustained winds of 39 mph to 73 mph must be present.
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A second feature was just emerging from the coast of Central America and has the greatest chance of any of the four or so disturbances drifting across the Pacific. There is a better than 50% chance this feature organizes into a tropical depression or storm in the next five days as it moves along to the west-northwest around 10 mph.
Two other features, including a large area of showers and thunderstorms to the west of the Manzanillo system, were poorly organized and encountering some wind shear.
Wind shear is the change in the flow of air at different layers of the atmosphere and over the horizontal area just above the sea surface. Strong wind shear can lead to the demise of established hurricanes and tropical storms and prevent the development of tropical systems in general.
The system well south of Manzanillo is likely to soon encounter the increasing wind shear.
It is not uncommon for there to be a series of disturbances in the waters of the eastern Pacific during July.
“The main role these features will be to create rough seas in their vicinity and allow some large waves and rough surf conditions along the western coasts of Central America and Mexico in the coming days,” Kottlowski said during a map discussion on Friday, July 3.
Thus far, there have been two tropical storms in 2020 over the eastern Pacific. Amanda developed in late May and Boris formed in late June.
Some of the leftover moisture from Amanda, after it brought flooding rains to parts of Central America, helped to give birth to Tropical Storm Cristobal on the Gulf of Mexico side of Mexico during early June.
There have also been two depressions so far in the eastern Pacific with the first system forming in late April and the the last one forming right at the end of June.
The next names on the list for the 2020 East Pacific hurricane season are Cristina and Douglas, should the newest features reach tropical-storm status.
Source: AccuWeather
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