Like its predecessors over the tropical Atlantic this hurricane season, Lorenzo – which formed early Monday over the central Atlantic – continues to struggle as a tropical storm, with its winds and weather separated from its flailing center.
Satellite estimates early Tuesday indicated Lorenzo was barely hanging on to tropical storm status despite a decrease in hostile wind shear since Monday. As we mentioned in Monday’s newsletter, Lorenzo formed very far east for the time of year – the farthest east we’ve recorded a name storm in the deep tropics this late in the season in over 20 years – so its up against climatology, which isn’t very supportive of storms out here in mid October.
Intensity models are somewhat split on Lorenzo’s future, with some statistically-based models suggesting a period of resurgence by late week or the weekend, but others showing a gradual decay.
The official forecast splits the difference and keeps Lorenzo a mid-grade tropical storm this week as it makes a rollercoaster-like loop-the-loop into next week over the open Atlantic.
Regardless, Lorenzo poses no threat to land.
Lorenzo evens out the season
The 2025 hurricane season has so far underperformed seasonal expectations which set the greatest chance for above average activity.
Due to the unusual peak-season lull – nearly three weeks from late August through mid-September when the Atlantic saw not a single tropical system – the hurricane season has been running mostly below average in all categories but major (Category 3 or stronger) hurricanes.
It’s done some work since to recover, however, with a number of notable storms in recent weeks like Gabrielle, Humberto, and Imelda. Lorenzo puts the season at 12 named storms, about average for the time of year, with Accumulated Cyclone Energy or ACE – the season’s overall scorecard – running near average through today.
Watching the western Caribbean down the line
As we discussed in yesterday’s newsletter, we’ll be tracking a tropical wave just west of Africa as it moves into the Caribbean next week.
For at least the next week, we don’t expect any development, but longer-range models are maintaining a decent signal of development odds increasing as it moves into the western Caribbean come the middle to latter part of next week (October 22-25) and interacts with the Pacific monsoon trough, an area of background spin that could give it a boost as upper-level winds become more conducive.
For now this is still too far out to put much weight in any one solution, but it’s a trend we’ll continue to follow in the models, especially for parts of Central America.
Copyright 2025 by WPLG Local10.com - All rights reserved.
