A tropical wave (Invest 97L) quickly organized into Tropical Depression Fourteen on Thursday night over the far Eastern Atlantic. As of 11:00 p.m. EDT, the depression was centered near 10.7°N 25.4°W, and was moving west-northwestward at about 22 mph. Maximum sustained winds were 30 knots (35 mph), with an estimated minimum pressure of 1010 mb. The official National Hurricane Center (NHC) predicts that the depression will become Tropical Storm Lee on Friday. The depression is currently located in an environment of fairly light shear, and should be able to strengthen slowly over the next 48-72 hours. By early next week, wind shear is expected to quickly increase and the NHC forecast calls for weakening at that time. TD Fourteen is no imminent threat to land.

Jose now a tropical storm, but expected to restrengthen

Battling wind shear, Hurricane Jose weakened to a strong tropical storm on Thursday morning. However, Jose is likely to restrengthen as it moves into a more favorable environment during the next couple days. As of 11:00 p.m. EDT, Tropical Storm Jose was centered near 25.5°N 68.0°W and was moving west-northwestward at about 8 mph. Maximum sustained winds were 60 knots (70 mph), with an estimated minimum pressure of 989 mb. Jose has finally completed its clockwise loop, and has now begun its move to the west-northwest. Jose is expected to pass between the United States East Coast and Bermuda as a hurricane this weekend. Jose is likely to pass fairly close to the Northeastern United States by the middle of next week. While most global models predict that Jose will not make a direct landfall, impacts will be possible even if Jose does not directly make landfall. Residents from the coast of North Carolina northward should closely monitor the progress of Jose during the next several days. An Air Force Hurricane Hunter aircraft is scheduled to investigate Jose tomorrow to obtain a better idea of the storm’s intensity.

I will be back with another post tomorrow.