97L Continues To Gain Organization
97L has become more organized over the past 24 hours and will continue to organize over the next day or two. Conditions are becoming more favorable for tropical cyclone development and a tropical depression could form as early as Tuesday.
The 97L will rapidly strengthen as it approaches the Windward Islands and could be a strong tropical storm by the time it enters the southeast Caribbean. Its proximity to South America could suppress strengthening some while it passes north of the Continent.
Models are in agreement that once this passage has occurred and the storm is able to remain well intact, further rapid intensification is expected as it begins to slow.
Later in the week, low pressure over the eastern US coast will create a weakness in the ridge. This will allow the storm to slow and begin to turn northward in response to the low.
The forecast track at this point will be complicated. Most models show the storm being picked up by the trough lift it north over Hispaniola. A trip over this geographical region would potential weaken the system briefly but reemerge off to the north where strengthen could possibly resume.
The 12Z GFS ensembles show this sort of track (though I want to be clear this is not the official forecast track nor will this remain the same over time). This type of track would either keep the storm off the east coast but also risk bringing it a little closer to the coast.
I want to emphasize this is only one of what are soon to be many changes in the forecast. No one is out of the woods on this one and further monitoring of the storm is recommended through this week and into the weekend. I will continue to update frequently through this time.
Note: This is an opinion forecast and not an official forecast.