MIAMI — A tropical disturbance just east of the Caribbean is battling strong upper-level winds as it crawls towards the islands.
Unless something very unexpected happens, the hostile upper environment is likely to keep it from developing an organized, tight circulation, but it can’t be completely ruled out.
Sometimes, an undetectable perturbation in the flow relaxes the upper winds just enough to allow systems to organize, at least briefly, although in this case the chances of that look slight
Most likely, the disturbance will slowly move through the northeastern Caribbean islands tonight and tomorrow as a gusty moisture surges and then slowly continue to the west.
The increased moisture should reach the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico late tomorrow into Friday as the system migrates across the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles and into the northern islands.
Conditions could become more favorable over the weekend for this system to develop into a tropical system with rain in Hispaniola by Saturday.
The Virgin Islands Free Press will continue to monitor the tropics.
Hurricane season runs through November 30.