The tropics are extremely busy this morning as we continue through peak season. The NHC is watching four active tropical cyclones plus three more areas that might develop in the next five days.

This post will focus on Sally, Paulette, and TD-20 as the other systems are either no threat to land, or unlikely to develop in the near future.

The Hurricane Hunters have been investigating Sally this morning and found the storm a little stronger than last night. The center is still located northwest of most of the system’s thunderstorm activity, but that may be changing as new storms pop up farther northwest.

Sally is expected to strengthen steadily today and tomorrow as it moves WNW towards the Louisiana coastline. Landfall is expected Tuesday as a Category Two hurricane, though given a favorable environment for rapid intensification, I wouldn’t discount the possibility that Sally winds up being a Category Three before moving onshore. Either way, the main threats associated with Sally will be storm surge and extremely heavy rainfall, both of which will extend well east of the center. Even if you’re outside the cone of uncertainty in parts of the FL Peninsula, you need to take this storm seriously!

Residents in this area should be preparing for Sally now and should heed the advice of state and local officials particularly when it comes to evacuation orders.

Out in the Atlantic, Hurricane Paulette is strengthening this morning having finally moved into an environment with lower wind shear. Convection is wrapping all the way around the storm’s developing eye, and as a result strengthening should continue throughout the day. The storm is expected to make a close pass or direct hit on Bermuda tonight complete with hurricane-force winds, heavy rain, and storm surge. Conditions will begin to deteriorate on Bermuda soon, and residents there should rush their preparations to completion this morning.

After impacting Bermuda, Paulette will turn north and then northeast early this week. While no further direct impacts to landmasses are expected, the storm will send very large swells towards the East Coast this week and as a result, the risk for rip currents at exposed beaches will be greatly enhanced.

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The last stop on our whirlwind tour of the tropical Atlantic is about half way between Barbados and Africa where Tropical Depression Twenty has been designated by the NHC. The satellite loop above shows a well-defined low-level swirl associated with the system (white clouds are close to the ground on this type of imagery) but most of the intense thunderstorm activity displaced off to the south/southwest. With a structure like this, TD 20 is likely to be slow to organize as it moves generally west-northwest in the next few days.

Current forecasts show TD-20 becoming a hurricane this week while turning northwest well before the Lesser Antilles. While it’s hard to say exactly where the storm will be a week from now, at the moment it looks like this system poses relatively little threat to land.

-Jack

Posted on 9/13/2020 by Jack Sillin with the Hurricane Tracker App. These posts are meant to provide our users with a detailed analysis of the tropics as conditions warrant and may not be updated on a daily basis. For the latest up to date storm information, always go to “Current Storms” and select a system for the latest information.

We will have another tropical weather discussion as conditions warrant. Thanks for using Hurricane Tracker.

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