Two weather systems developing to the southeast of Guam, Rota, Tinian, and Saipan – Invest 93W and Invest 94W – may be coming through the Mariana Islands region between late this weekend and midweek next week.
“93W is the one to watch,” National Weather Service meteorologist Brandon Aydlett told Kandit in a 12 p.m., Friday, November 8, 2024 interview.
Invest 93W, which has an elevated potential of becoming a tropical depression within the next 24 hours, is located north of Kwajalein in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. According to Mr. Aydlett, the system is moving west-northwest, though weather experts will not have a trajectory of its possible area of passage through the Mariana Islands until it becomes a tropical depression.
“Environmental analysis indicates that 93W is in a favorable environment for further development due to very warm sea surface temperatures, good poleward outflow aloft, and low to moderate vertical wind shear,” according to a statement by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center this morning.
Invest 94W is closer to the Mariana Islands, located near Chuuk state in the Federated States of Micronesia. This system has less time to develop as it approaches the Mariana Islands, Mr. Aydlett said. Nonetheless, the JTWC statement on the developing weather system also says 94W is in a favorable environment to organize and become a storm.
“Global deterministic models indicate that 94W will continue to track in a northwestward direction with steady intensification over the next 48 hours,” the JTWC statement reads.
Weather experts are not yet seeing hints of rapid intensification for either weather system. It is still too soon to make any definitive calls about either of the impending storms, how strong they might become, where they will go if they do develop, or when either might make a closest point of approach to any of the islands of the Marianas.
As of now, Mr. Aydlett said, global models agree that 94W will pass somewhere between Yap and Guam.
Mr. Aydlett highlighted a significant difference between the current events and the recent storms, which were not damaging or destructive as they passed through our region. He noted that Invest 93W and Invest 94W are developing further east of the Marianas compared to the previous storms this year. This fact has the NWS Guam Office and weather experts throughout the globe keeping an eye on these two systems with regard to how they might impact Guam, Rota, Tinian, and Saipan.
NWS Guam, according to Mr. Aydlett, has commenced discussions with both the governments of the CNMI and Guam, as well as Joint Region Marianas. Mr. Aydlett asks the people of the islands to continue to monitor the developments of both systems this weekend.
