Updated Tuesday at 9 a.m. EDT
Hurricane Tammy is holding on well north of the Caribbean. The moisture tail feeding into the system is still pulling spotty downpours over the islands east of Puerto Rico, but the lingering effects of the storm should be over today.
Tammy’s track for the next two days seems clear. It will drift in a northerly direction. After that, there appears to be an atmospheric fork in the road. A large upper-level low-pressure system related to a sharp dip in the jet stream is forecast to form to the west of Tammy. If the upper low doesn’t grab Tammy tight, it could kick the storm off into the open central Atlantic.
The scenario favored by the National Hurricane Center, however, is for Tammy to get absorbed by the upper low and slowly rotate around the top side of the giant circulation. In the meantime, the upper low will inject dry air into Tammy, and the upper-level winds will become hostile. Tammy is forecast to become a non-tropical low-pressure system about Thursday and eventually move out to sea.
Before that happens over the weekend, however, non-tropical ex-Tammy might track near Bermuda. Everyone on the island should stay informed. There is no sign it would be a strong storm, but it will be moving slowly, so a period of nasty weather is possible, depending on how this scenario plays out. With several moving parts and a fork in the road to navigate, uncertainty is higher than normal.
In the extreme southern Caribbean, Tropical Depression Twenty-One has come ashore in Nicaragua. Heavy rain with potential flooding will spread across the mountainous areas and into Honduras. The remnants of this system look likely to eventually venture into the Pacific.
On the Pacific coast of Mexico, soon-to-be Hurricane Otis is forecast to make landfall just north of Acapulco tomorrow afternoon. Everyone along that coast should stay up to date on the latest forecast and information.
Otherwise, nothing seems to be cooking. Dry air and hostile winds are controlling the atmosphere over the Gulf of Mexico and up the East Coast. The Caribbean waters continue to be unusually warm, however, so development there before the season ends can’t be ruled out.