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Depression forms in Caribbean; expected to become tropical storm

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By NEIL JOHNSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 4, 2009

Updated: 11/04/2009 11:28 am

TAMPA - The year's latest tropical depression formed today from an area of low pressure tucked near Central America and is expected to become Tropical Storm Ida, possibly today.

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center have watched the thunderstorms in the extreme southwestern Caribbean Sea since the weekend, and the system continued to become more organized.

The hurricane center said the season's 11th depression has winds of just more than 30 mph and is about 896 miles south of Key West. It is moving northwest about 8 mph but is expected to slow in a few days.

A U.S. Air Force hurricane hunter is scheduled to fly through the system today, and the depression may then be upgraded to a tropical storm, the hurricane center said.

It is too early to tell whether the depression or storm will become a threat to Florida. Much of that depends on an area of high pressure over the state. The system could move around the western edge of the high pressure and stay away from Florida.

Forecasters said computer models show a wide spread of possible paths for the system, including some that keep it more or less hovering in place.

The hurricane center forecast calls for the storm to cross over Nicaragua and Honduras during the weekend, then back over open water south of the Yucatan Peninsula as a tropical storm on Monday.

Intensity models are equally split, but only one takes the storm to hurricane strength. The hurricane center's five-day forecast keeps it well below hurricane strength.

Another low pressure area the hurricane center watched three weeks ago in the same part of the Caribbean never turned into anything except some thunderstorms that migrated into the Pacific.

Water in the western Caribbean and Gulf remains extremely warm, although less than a month remains in hurricane season. Storms in October and November generally form in those areas and frequently from areas of low pressure caused by fronts that stall south of Cuba.

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