Michael Lowry in Eye on the Tropics:
On Thursday, the National Hurricane Center designated the strong tropical disturbance now moving across eastern Cuba Invest 97L, a procedural move that allowed NHC to begin running a specialized suite of computer models to better interpret its future strength and track.
Although the system has yet to form into a tropical depression or tropical storm, because it’s expected to do so and affect land areas within the next few days, NHC will likely initiate advisories for a Potential Tropical Cyclone later today, which will include tropical storm watches or warnings for parts of Florida.
If a tropical storm forms this weekend, the next name on the list is Debby.
Models struggle with 97L’s formation
Modeling the exact details of the tropical wave’s interaction with the complex terrain of the Caribbean islands is extremely difficult. We’ve seen the end result of this, which is a windshield-wipering of the forecast models from west to east and then again back east.
The first three minutes of this Accuweather report is a good descriptor on what can disrupt storms before they have a clear shot at the US mainland – the Island of Hispaniola, which includes Haiti and the Dominican Republic.