As of Wednesday evening the 26th Tropical Storm Erika is moving generally west into a wall of upper level wind shear of 20 to 30kts. So will Erika survive at all much less affect the United States? with all the media hype on the U.S potential you would think this was a done deal but not so fast. The mountains of Hispaniola can disrupt the low level inflow into tropical systems and a system does not need to pass directly over the Dominican Republic to come unraveled. Back in 2000 I remember vividly Hurricane Debby moving through the Northern Leeward Islands just like Erika with a cone of error pointing at South Florida. The darling model at that time GFDL had a potential cat 4 moving into South Florida as per the NHC discussion at that time. NHC discussion on Debby from 5AM Aug 23rd. What ended up happening is Debby moved just north of Hispaniola the NHC discussion from 11AM noted
THE LOW-
LEVEL CIRCULATION HAS LIKELY BEEN DISRUPTED BY THE DOWNSLOPE FLOW
OFF THE MOUNTAINS OF HISPANIOLA.
within 24 hrs she would be dead,is the outcome for Erika the same? While I simply will not speculate on any U.S impacts all bets are off unless she survives Hispaniola and if she survives the Bahamas would be next. My #16 pick Great Inagua Bahamas would be in her direct path as a tropical storm if she is further N.E Little San Salvador #15 and potentially after this Great Abaco island #14 for the rest of my picks this year visit Jim’s city predictions so lets see if she survives and then we will talk potential U.S for next week.