Potential Tropical Cyclone 18 strengthens as it tracks toward the Gulf

I'm meteorologist Jordan West with the quick tropics updates, the National Hurricane Center has started issuing advisories on what is now potential tropical cyclone 18. The reason that they're calling it 18 is because they wanna go ahead and start issuing advisories and give out information, issue, watches and warnings and also show the track of this system. So here's what we know right now. It's moving northeast at seven MPH. Winds are at 35 MPH. Once it becomes more organized and winds cross 40 MPH, it will become *** tropical storm and that tropical storm will be named Rafael because that's the next name on the list. Pressure is at 1000 and four millibars as the pressure drops, the system strengthens. Where is it going to end up? Well, here's *** track as we move into tonight as early as midnight tonight, it could become *** tropical storm. By then, by the time we get to 12 pm, Monday, it's strengthening through the Caribbean Sea and then it looks like it could scrape up against the western coast of Jamaica, bringing heavy rain and *** potential flooding for the Jamaica area. That blue there you see surrounding the coastline that is *** tropical storm warning that's in effect for Jamaica as well. And then it'll be headed towards the Cayman Islands just south of Cuba. The pink you see on the screen are hurricane watches because the system is expected to strengthen as it pushes through the Caribbean and strengthen into *** category one hurricane making this hurricane Rafael as it makes landfall along the western Cuba coastline. It could be in between the Yucatan Peninsula and um Cuba. But right now, most of the malls are having it making landfall along the western Cuba coastline as the system crosses into the Gulf of Mexico. This is typically when we see systems strengthen further due to the very warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. However, this as of now doesn't look to be doing that and that's because we have some drier air coming into play and we also have some wind shear coming into play and that's going to actually weaken the system. Now, once it gets into the Gulf of Mexico, as you can see the cone, it widens out pretty wide. That's because that's where the uncertainty lies. Um After seven days or so, the models start to diverge, going east, going west, going north, it's too early to say and we'll keep you updated on what happened, happens right now. This is gonna be *** relatively weak storm, *** tropical storm though in the Gulf of Mexico by the time it makes its way towards Alabama, towards Mississippi, towards Louisiana. It's just something we'll have to keep you guys updated on. So the red that you see here in the Caribbean on this map here, that's what will be Rafael, but we have two other yellow regions in the Atlantic Ocean. The smaller one encompassed in the bigger yellow region, um that is an area of low pressure that's trying to develop. It has *** very low chance of developing into anything. Not worry about that. And the bigger one that's surrounding it, that's an area of tropical development that could also form into something also as *** small chance of developing. Um And that would be until midweek next week. So we'll keep an eye out on those two but nothing to worry about. We typically don't see *** lot of tropical activity. Um This time of the year not to say that we don't ever see them, but we typically don't. Um hurricane season does end as we make our way to the end of November, November 30th. So we are looking forward to *** little bit of *** break from the tropics as we move into next year and into December. But I do want to look at the hurricane names list. Um sort of just recapping what all we've seen this season. Um Like I said before, Rafael is the next name on the list. Patty is out well into the Atlantic ocean way away from the United States out there by the Azores and out there by, uh Portugal. But as you can see, we still have some names on the list. We hope we don't have to go through these, but we'll keep you guys updated just in case. I'm W BT M 13. Meteorologist Jordan West. You can stay up to date on all things. Tropics at W BT M thirteen.com.