Saint Lucia urged to monitor weather system

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Weather Channel – A tropical disturbance, Invest 97L, well east of the Windward Islands, is now likely to develop into the next Atlantic named storm later this week, and may pose a threat into next week in the Caribbean basin and possibly beyond.

For now, this tropical disturbance is located over 1100 miles east of the Lesser Antilles. It’s a tropical “wave” because winds at the surface do not exhibit a closed low-pressure circulation, but rather shift from northeasterly ahead of the wave to southeasterly behind the wave.

The National Hurricane Center has tentatively scheduled the first Hurricane Hunter mission into Invest 97L for Tuesday afternoon.

Steered by the subtropical ridge of high pressure known as the Bermuda-Azores high, Invest 97L will arrive in the Windward Islands, bringing showers, some locally heavy rain and gusty winds by Wednesday, according to our latest forecast.

The National Hurricane Center has given this system a high chance for formation into a tropical depression over the next 2 to 5 days as it nears the Lesser Antilles into the Caribbean Sea. The next named storm in the Atlantic would be Matthew.

It should be noted this disturbance is starting out at a fairly low latitude, south of 10 degrees. Therefore, showers and gusty winds are expected in such locations as St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, perhaps even coastal Venezuela later this week.

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