Hurricane Sara to form near Jamaica

Weather experts are all monitoring a broad area of low pressure over the Central Caribbean that has been producing a lot of showers and thunderstorms for the past couple of days.

The National Hurricane Center in the US stated in its latest update issued 7:00 AM (EST) that regardless of the developments “heavy rains are expected over Jamaica during the next day or so”.

In its 5:00 am bulletin today the Met Service of Jamaica stated the current conditions will affect most parishes, especially southern and northeastern parishes into the weekend.

“Environmental conditions are conducive for development, and a tropical depression is likely to form within the next couple of days while the system moves slowly westward into the western Caribbean Sea.  Afterward, further development is likely while the disturbance meanders over the western Caribbean Sea through the weekend.  The system is expected to turn slowly northwestward by early next week,” reports the NHC’s Larry Kelly.

Computer models are in agreement that this slow-moving system has a 90% chance of becoming a hurricane between the next two to seven days, but offer varying hypothesis regarding its projected path and timeline for strengthening.

Brian Shields in an update on his YouTube channel, told his more than 500,000 subscribers “this could be another big one” late into the hurricane season.

He said: “The core of this eventual hurricane could be close to Jamaica, maybe up to the Cayman Islands. We just need to see first where the centre is starting to develop then after I’ll know where it’s going to go.”

AccuWeather Senior meteorologist Alex Sosnowski, writes: “Because of the warm water and low wind shear in the region, there is a significant chance it will go on to become a hurricane if it avoids making landfall in Central America.”

In the same article Sosnowski quoted Accuweather lead hurricane expert Alex DaSilva as saying: "There are multiple scenarios with the feature in the Caribbean that are tied to the speed of development and track early on that could affect land areas with landfall and direct impacts later on. Not only does this have a high chance of becoming a hurricane by the end of this week, but it may become a major hurricane very quickly - this weekend."