JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — You may hear the term "tropical invest" describing an area of disturbed weather in the tropics. But what exactly does this mean?
The term "invest" is short for "investigative area," and it indicates that meteorologists from the National Hurricane Center are monitoring this region for possible tropical cyclone development.
Characteristics of a Tropical Invest
Disturbed Weather: An invest typically consists of a cluster of thunderstorms, showers or cloudiness. This disturbed weather might show signs of organization, such as developing low-level circulation or increased convection.
Potential for Development: While not all invests become tropical cyclones, they are monitored because they have some potential for development into a tropical depression, tropical storm, or hurricane.
Assigned Number and Identification: When an area of interest is designated as an invest, it is given a number from 90 to 99, followed by a suffix indicating the basin where it is located (e.g., "Invest 90L" for the Atlantic Ocean or "Invest 91E" for the Eastern Pacific). Numbers 90-99 are used to not confuse with the nomenclature of actual named storms that start at one for the year.
Increased monitoring and analysis
When an area is declared an invest, there is an increase in monitoring and forecasting for that specific area, including:
- Satellite Imagery: Tropical floaters and high-resolution imagery will be focused on those areas.
- Weather Models: High-resolution guidance gets ingested over a tropical invest to increase accuracy of a forecast.
- Weather Observations: From ships, buoys, or hurricane hunters, all these observations are used to ingest into weather models and help improve the accuracy of a forecast with a tropical area.
If a tropical invest looks like it will develop the NHC will upgrade it to a tropical depression or a potential tropical cyclone (PTC) is a designation used by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) to describe a weather system that is not yet a tropical cyclone (tropical depression, tropical storm, or hurricane) but has the potential to develop into one and is likely to bring tropical-storm or hurricane conditions to land within 48 hours. This designation allows the NHC to issue advisories, watches, and warnings for systems that are expected to impact land even before they become fully developed tropical cyclones.
For more information on tropical weather in the Atlantic please visit First Coast News Hurricane Central.
