The good news is that Edouard managed to make it through the night without intensifying much. In fact, maximum sustained winds this morning remain around 40 mph. The less good news is that “under the hood,” Edouard seems poised to try and make a go at intensifying a bit before it makes landfall in about 8 to 12 hours from this writing. Basically, Edouard has what it needs to try and intensify quickly up to landfall but whether its able to put all those things together is an open question and the difference between a sloppy 40 mph tropical storm making landfall and a compact 60 to 70 mph tropical storm making landfall.

The NHC has taken that latter scenario and applied it to Edouard’s forecast, bringing ashore a 65 mph tropical storm near Sabine Pass later today. The environment around Edouard, other than proximity to land is as optimal as you really need for intensification. I saw a post on social media yesterday from someone that said essentially, “I suspect we’re going to see a lot of ‘good thing this didn’t have 24 more hours over water’ posts tomorrow.” I forget who posted it, but it seems spot on. The biggest limiting factor to Edouard today will be that it has less than 12 more hours over water.

In terms of impacts, Edouard will make landfall sometime this afternoon, likely within 10 miles or so of Sabine Pass, TX. Recall yesterday that we said Edouard’s wind field was likely to be compact when it began intensifying, no more than 30 miles or so across. The current wind radius on Edouard is 25 miles from the center. This means that any wind impacts from Edouard will be very isolated to near where the center comes ashore. The best chance of wind gusts officially reaching tropical storm intensity will be between Cameron, LA and just west of Sabine Pass, perhaps to High Island.

Edouard is going to weaken quickly once inland, and by the time it reaches I-10, it will probably barely be able to hold together tropical storm force wind gusts.

Some residual gusts to tropical storm strength are possible east of Houston, across Liberty, northern Chambers, or Hardin Counties but that would be about it. It seems highly unlikely that Houston itself will see tropical storm conditions at any point.

Obviously, the rain will be another story. It continues to appear that any real flash flooding risk is east of Houston today and tonight. Locally heavy rain may occur across Liberty, Chambers, Hardin, and Jefferson Counties in Southeast Texas and in Calcasieu and Cameron Parishes in Louisiana.

Rain totals are taken from the REFS ensemble system above, and they may be a bit aggressive east of Houston. But you get the idea: 3 to 6 inches of rain in a narrow corridor between Houston and Beaumont.

This is somewhat speculative on my part, but the remnant center of Edouard should be in the Brazos Valley tonight, near Huntsville or Madisonville. We sometimes see the centers of these things try to pop up more numerous thunderstorms than forecast during the diurnal peak in convection overnight (the propensity for tropical systems to peak their thunderstorm activity in the overnight hours). There could be a localized flooding threat somewhere up near Huntsville, Madisonville, or Centerville overnight, so just be aware of that. A flood watch is posted over a wide area of Texas today.

The good news is that a lot of places are rather dry right now, so the rain should be soaked up in a lot of cases. Obviously, you never want too much too fast. But the hope is that this will limit serious flooding.

Last point here, storm surge flooding should impact travel on Gulf Beach Highway in Louisiana through the day today, with up to 5 feet of surge possible near and east of where Edouard comes ashore.

Follow Space City Weather for the latest details on Edouard around the Houston area.

Share

Subscribe now

Over at Space City Weather, Eric takes a look at how TD 5, or what should become Edouard will impact the Houston area. My purpose here is to zoom out a little and take a look at TD 5 from a larger perspective.

First, as of this evening, the storm center of Tropical Depression 5 is located south of Vermilion Bay, Louisiana. Maximum sustained winds are 35 mph, so we’re not yet at tropical storm intensity.

There has been hurricane hunter activity in the depression throughout the day, and the read is that the circulation is becoming better defined. They’ll be back out tonight, and given how things have gone today, I would not be the least bit shocked to see this upgraded to a named storm with the 10 PM CT advisory.

The track forecast for TD 5 is actually relatively straightforward and simple. It will continue west northwest to northwest and make landfall somewhere between High Island, TX and Cameron Parish, LA tomorrow afternoon or evening.

TD 5 has about 24 hours over water to do whatever it will do.

So, what will it do? Normally, we’d look at a system like this and say, “Ok, weak to maybe moderate tropical storm, and that’s that.” TD 5 is slightly different. It’s small, it’s healthy “under the hood,” and it’s over very warm water in an extremely low shear environment. The key in that sentence is that it’s small. Small storms deserve love too. And in fact, sometimes these smaller storms can thrive in this part of the world, easier to wind up. And with only 24 hours over water, this storm will probably come ashore while intensifying, meaning it may punch a little above its weight class in terms of coastal impacts.

The latest NHC forecast brings TD 5 to 60 mph at landfall near Sabine Pass, TX. About 20 percent of Google 1,000 member ensemble members bring TD 5 above 60 mph at landfall, with about 5 to 10 percent doing so as a hurricane. Google’s operational WN2 model is not as excited with this, but I think this is an excellent use case for a 1,000 member ensemble. It gives you a more adequate dispersion of members in terms of intensity, and with small storms that can easily fluctuate like this one should, that’s helpful.

Let’s talk about the potential of a higher-end outcome. Let’s say TD 5 becomes a hurricane. Heck, even just a strong tropical storm. What sort of wind would we be looking at here? The answer is “a very compact, localized” wind field that would quickly drop off as it moved inland.

In this scenario, you’d have strong tropical storm or hurricane-force gusts on the immediate coast between High Island, TX and about Johnson Bayou, LA. And the western flank of that may even be a little generous. By the time you got to Winnie, Nederland, Beaumont, Orange, Vinton, or Sulphur along I-10, you’d be talking about low-end tropical storm force wind gusts. At best. The storm would weaken rather fast once onshore, and this would likely substantially crush the wind intensity. In fact, if you run the HWRF, shown here, out 3 hours from here, you get max wind gusts in the 40s south of I-10 and 30s north of I-10.

Also, notable since the broader media will tie this into “Greater Houston,” this outcome would keep tropical storm force winds away from the entirety of the Houston Metro area, except maybe, maybe Galveston and Bolivar.

So, if you live on the coast or just inland between High Island and Johnson Bayou, I encourage you to prepare as if a strong tropical storm or Category 1 hurricane were coming.

In terms of rain, the good news is that the system looks generally progressive. The remnant center of it should be somewhere south of Dallas or east of Temple by Wednesday afternoon. But, the system is rather moisture-laden, so it will be able to dump some hefty rain near where the center tracks. In general, I would expect about 1 to 3 inches of rain east of I-45 with a band of 3 to 7 inch totals along the center track. That’s what should track through western Jefferson, eastern Chambers, Liberty, Hardin, Tyler, Polk, and San Jacinto Counties. Within that 3 to 7 inch corridor, there could be a bullseye closer to 10 inches in one or two spots.

In the Houston Metro, we cover that at Space City Weather, but there is likely to be a very sharp gradient where parts of the area see nothing at all, up to an inch, then a quick escalation to 3, 4, 5 inches or more somewhere east of I-45. For Beaumont-Port Arthur, this looks like the heaviest rain will fall south and west of those cities, but it’s possible we see over 3 inches in spots. An inch or so is possible in Lake Charles, as well as around the periphery of where TD 5/Edouard “dies” in Texas, be it near Waco or Lufkin.

While this is probably not a severe flooding risk, there will be pockets of flash flooding possible later tomorrow through Wednesday morning, so just be advised of that in those areas.

We’ll update the situation again in the morning. Stay safe!

Share

Subscribe now

Invest 97L

The good news is that scary looking satellite imagery is not correlated to tropical system intensity. On satellite, Invest 97L looks quite imposing this morning, but it’s notable that almost all the storminess is to the east of the presumed center.

Aside from that, we remain around 70 percent odds of potential development as of the overnight update from NHC. In terms of things that have and have not changed otherwise overnight: The track is mostly unchanged, generally toward the Upper Texas Coast with the center arriving onshore sometime tomorrow afternoon or evening. If there is a slight change in track, it’s that more tropical models are a little farther south and west with 97L, perhaps owing to the fact that it has not developed yet.

Weaker systems will tend to go a little farther west before turning northward, and that could be what’s at play here. Either way, it’s good news that it has not organized yet. The more time it takes organizing also reduces the amount of time it has to intensify. So in general, we’re still looking at a decent chance at a tropical depression and a moderate chance at a tropical storm by landfall. People on the Texas coast, especially east of Houston should continue to monitor Invest 97L through the day.

What we are likely to see is more rain, however. Rain totals continue to slowly increase in East Texas. We would now expect about 1 to 3 inches, with isolated pockets of 3-5 inches of rain or more east of Houston and west of Beaumont. It’s not out of the question that someone sees close to 10 inches of rain from this before all is said and done, so obviously areas of flash flooding will be a concern, perhaps not in Houston proper, but east of there.

So, bottom line? A tropical storm remains a distinct possibility out of Invest 97L. A depression is a good bet. The main threat will be heavy rain and flooding between Houston and Beaumont and inland from there. But folks east of Houston, between Bolivar and Port Arthur will want to keep an eye on 97L over the next 36 hours before landfall, in case it does try to organize faster.

More later today.

Share

This post will be fairly brief, but I wanted to add some thoughts regarding Invest 97L before the morning. First off, it looks mostly the same this evening as it did earlier today, which is a bit of a small feat in and of itself, as typically these nascent systems strengthen more overnight and weaken during the day. That it has held its own indicates it’s probably in shape to organize a bit further.

What has changed as a result of this and recent model guidance is two-fold. First, a bigger risk of locally heavy rain in Texas and Louisiana. Second, a higher chance that 97L will actually develop into a depression or storm. The NHC has raised odds to 70% this evening, but I would think the odds are closer to 90% for a depression and 60 to 70 percent for a named storm. Either way, they are now higher.

Modeling is in good agreement on both track and timing of the system, giving it about 36 or so more hours over water before making landfall near Port Arthur or High Island, TX sometime during the second half of the day Tuesday. Models have become a bit more scattered in terms of intensity of 97L today, with a few more pulsing up into tropical storm status.

At this point, if you live on the Upper Texas Coast east of Baytown through about Cameron Parish, LA, it makes sense to prepare for a tropical storm. This means the potential for heavy rain, gusty winds, some minor to moderate coastal flooding, and rough seas. The problem with these smaller systems like 97L is that they don’t give you a whole lot of warning and then all of a sudden they ramp up. Think of Hurricane Humberto in 2007 as a prime example of this. It wound up from a disturbance to a small hurricane in about 24 hours. The initial forecast from the NHC for Humberto had max winds of 45 mph. I’m not saying Invest 97L will do that; our modeling has improved quite a lot in 20 years. But I am saying that model guidance still doesn’t always capture these smaller storms properly, and it’s better to err on the side of caution in these areas, especially to the east side of where the storm may come ashore.

I am growing a little more interested and potentially concerned about the potential for flash flooding in parts of Texas from 97L, especially north of Houston and east of I-35. Rain totals have trended up a good bit since earlier today, and I think the potential exists for rain totals to increase more over the next couple days. I’d watch the triangle between Beaumont, College Station, and Lufkin closest right now, but let’s see how things play out over the next couple days.

More in the AM.

Share

Subscribe now

Invest 97L to bring some rain to Texas and Louisiana

We’ll start closer to home today, with an area of possible development that felt like it sort of crept up out of nowhere after Friday morning. We have a disturbance now, Invest 97L, with about a 50 percent chance to develop over the next couple days.

Overall, the system has a pretty good deal of thunderstorm activity with it, not terribly dissimilar to what we saw with Bertha a few weeks ago. Whatever the case, there have been worse looking systems this summer. The models are not especially bullish on further development of 97L. Google’s Deep Mind 1,000 member ensemble has about an 8 percent chance of development, while the operational model doesn’t develop it all. And indeed, while wind shear isn’t terribly hostile where it currently sits, it should pick up a little bit over the next day or so. Not a lot, but perhaps enough to stave off a depression? We’ll see.

Either way, expect 97L to track generally west to northwest over the next couple days, bringing it ashore somewhere near Port Arthur or Sabine Pass by Tuesday. At this point, I would not expect much more than an open wave or a depression. And in fact, any rain from 97L would be most likely welcome in a region that has seen drought begin to really accelerate in the last month or so. But, if 97L can wrap itself up a little faster, over quite warm waters, sure we could end up with a tropical storm. The next name on the list is Edouard.

Once inland, 97L will probably get somewhat boxed in by high pressure to the east that’s going to try and build over top of it back to the west. I don’t think this will “trap” 97L over Texas, but it may act to slow it down a good bit. While this likely won’t lead to a major flooding issue, we could see some daily thunderstorms with heavy downpours possible. Modeling won’t do well capturing that right now, but I would not be shocked to see the rainfall totals shown below begin to inch upward a little over the next couple days between Dallas and Houston.

Bottom line with 97L: Worth keeping an eye on for Gulf Coast residents, especially near Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Cameron Parish, LA. Keep an eye on the rainfall forecast farther inland across Texas in case things should change.

Dolly second act chances?

Let’s check on Dolly’s remnants this afternoon.

The good news is that rains are falling in the drought-stricken Caribbean. So that’s coming to pass. From here, Dolly’s road is bumpy but not necessarily enough to destroy it. By Thursday, whatever is left of Dolly should be near Cuba and the Bahamas. I would assume it does not look a whole lot different at that time.

From there we embark on a bit of a choose your own adventure with this one. Some models draw it into the Gulf with some further development before crossing Florida and hooking back out to sea. Others keep it subdued without much development. Right now, the camps seem split with the AI modeling very subdued on any future organization and the European model a little more aggressive. There are some other models trying to put something else in the eastern Gulf around the time that Dolly gets there it seems as well. Most modeling takes that across the Florida Peninsula and out to sea.

So, this is just kind of sloppy right now, and there’s not much signal to draw out of this noise. What’s it mean? It means we should probably continue to keep track of both Dolly’s remnants and the potential for development in the eastern Gulf in about 8 to 10 days from now. But at this point, there’s no real reason to worry or get worked up.

Beyond that, the tropics are mostly subdued for the time being. But as is the case heading into the peak two to three weeks of the season now, you do want to keep track of each system, even the little ones.

Share

Subscribe now

In brief: Tropical Storm Dolly has a limited amount of time left before it likely dissipates, bringing just some remnant rain to the islands. Beyond that, it seems unlikely we’ll get an encore out of Dolly in the Gulf -- but there’s at least some reason not to write it off completely.

Tropical Storm Dolly officially formed yesterday out of Invest 96L in the Atlantic, a well-timed storm name for the fourth system of the season. Much like the previous 3 this year, Dolly is not going to hold it together for very long.

The storm currently sits well east of the Lesser Antilles. Over the next couple days, Dolly will rapidly move west northwest toward the islands, but simultaneously wind shear is going to increase, dry air is not going to improve things, and the forward motion will continue fast. The combination of these factors puts a very strong cap on Dolly’s potential intensity. In fact, in most cases, model guidance degenerates Dolly to an open wave

The Google Deep Mind operational model drops the percentage of ensemble members showing Dolly as a coherent system from 100% today to about 10% by Sunday evening.

So at this point, any impacts in the Caribbean should be limited to rain. And this is actually good news. Almost half of Puerto Rico is currently sitting in extreme drought.

Thanks in part to the strong El Niño, much of the Caribbean is dealing with drought right now. So any rain is welcome. How much rain will we see in these areas? Hopefully a solid 1 to 2 inches falls from this. Usually in drought, the risk is that the forecast comes in lighter than expected.

Either way, once in the Caribbean, it seems likely that any remnants of Dolly will be further hampered by shear and land interaction.

The question beyond midweek focuses heavily on what conditions Dolly’s remnants are in once near the Gulf or Florida. If Dolly has some lingering thunderstorms sticking with it, once near the Bahamas or Florida or Gulf, perhaps Dolly may have a chance to organize a little again. If Dolly is ripped up good, then it would be unlikely to do much of anything. Basically, while it seems highly unlikely any remnant of Dolly would do anything once near the Gulf, it’s one of those things you just never feel good totally writing off this time of year. So, let’s see how things trend through the weekend. And let’s hope some parts of the Caribbean can get some welcome rains.

Share

Subscribe now

Invest 96L

With 95L out of the picture now, we can focus solely on the main wave, Invest 96L in the eastern Atlantic.

The disturbance is not really progressing forward toward development but not exactly falling apart either. It’s just like one of us, working 9 to 5 and holding it together one day at a time. Both shear and dry air are at levels keeping it capped but also not exactly destroying it either. And realistically, this is probably where we’re going to be for a few days. Wind shear doesn’t look totally prohibitive, but it’s going to be present near the system for its entire trek across the Atlantic. Dry air doesn’t look totally prohibitive, but it’s going to be present near the system for its entire trek across the Atlantic.

A 70 percent probability of development feels a bit generous at this point, but truthfully, you could probably make a case anywhere from 10 to 80 percent with this one right now and it would be logical. Despite the high odds of development, I think it’s important to note that at least over the next 4 to 5 days, intensification seems highly unlikely. Could you get a depression or weak tropical storm? Sure. Would it get any worse than that through the weekend? No.

Our next real meaningful waypoint with 96L will be in about a week. At that point, we would expect Invest 96L, whatever degree of organization it is in to be located somewhere between the northern Caribbean and just east of the Bahamas.

It’s at that point that modeling gets a little funkier with things. The overarching pattern next week should feature a pretty broad area of high pressure in the upper atmosphere from the Desert Southwest into the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic. Well to the northeast of 96L at that time should be a trough in the North Atlantic. I would anticipate (at least looking right now at things) that both 96L and the trough will not be strong enough to link up and quickly usher the disturbance out to sea. So what may end up happening here is that 96L kind of sits off the Bahamas. From here it becomes a little more challenging to answer where it goes, but I would think that the overall pattern would support a bit of a turn north and eventually out to sea. It’s also an open question to wonder what sort of environment 96L will be in at that point.

I would assume that shear would be a good bit lower in the Southwest Atlantic at that time, but I’m not sure dry air or general weak instability that’s been hampering the basin won’t still be an issue.

So, that’s where we stand: Low risk of any meaningful development through about Monday or so. Then, the story gets a little more interesting but not nearly at a point where it’s concerning. If anything, model support over even the last 12 hours has dipped somewhat. Just something to watch. The good news is this is the only game in town right now, and there’s no sign of anything else meaningful in the pipeline at this point. More to come!

Share

Subscribe now

Watching the Atlantic right now is like putting a towel back in the drier and discovering it’s still damp. It’s not boring like watching paint dry. It’s just kind of frustrating. Are we going to get there? I mean, no one will complain if we don’t. But at this point, every disturbance that makes a go of it over the Atlantic thinks they’re evil Anakin Skywalker. “I’m a big, bad tropical wave. You want to stop me?”

Of course, it didn’t exactly end well for Anakin, and it probably won’t end well for most of these disturbances. But the question is if they stir something up in the interim.

Invest 95L

The disturbance east of Bermuda looked like it wanted to have a go at times. But thus far it has fallen short.

Will it do it today? I’m doubtful. It has about 12 to 18 hours left to do something before it runs out of runway. And at this point, it just looks too strung out to be able to consolidate enough.

Invest 96L

Newly minted Invest 96L is the one we’re most interested in at this point.

Looking at it on satellite, it’s still just a seedling of a tropical wave this morning. And over the next couple days, it will gradually try to organize itself. It currently sits in a relatively modest shear environment, though there is a bit of drier air nearby. So by no means will this organize swiftly.

Models have mostly held their positions since yesterday. It does seem like the European model’s AIFS is a little less enthused today. And Google’s Deep Mind operational ensemble is totally uninterested. The tropical models are a little bit more bulled up but even they’re quite mixed. On the whole, we’re basically in the same spot we were 24 hours ago, so I won’t belabor the point. Odds of development around 60 to 70 percent, though generous aren’t unreasonable. But we aren’t anywhere over that right now.

In terms of the future track of 96L, be it as a remnant tropical wave or as a nascent system, its future will initially be dictated by the Bermuda high, which will build west across the Atlantic as 96L moves west, keeping on a westerly or west-northwesterly course through at least Saturday or Sunday.

Where is the Bermuda high? Look at the big 597 bullseye over the open Atlantic. Thereafter, if 96L is weak, it may end up buried in the Caribbean, likely left to perish or track closer to the Antilles and Puerto Rico, where it still would face an uphill battle. If 96L is moderate, it would likely “feel” an expected weakening Bermuda high after Sunday (just after this model loop ends) and turn northwest and north fairly quickly, likely heading out into the open Atlantic. Neither scenario should get anyone too worked up right now, but we’ll keep an eye on things through the week and see how it all progresses. It’s late August. You never take anything for granted this time of year.

Beyond 96L

Anything else? Nothing specific at this time. There is model noise, as there always is this time of year, even in strong El Niño events. But I can’t really point to any specific disturbance beyond Invest 96L to home in on right now.

I suppose if you want to look for some intrigue, the Pacific is where you’d go. The NHC has seven disturbances on the board, be they active or in the outlook. The area with a 90% chance of development may be the most intriguing.

While most modeling kicks it west across the Pacific, there is a small subset that does try to lift this northward in time. If that happens, we could see some remnant moisture end up in the Southwest. That would not necessarily be a bad thing, as the monsoon has been fairly disappointing in many areas so far this year. But I would not exactly get my hopes up yet in the desert.

Share

Subscribe now

Apologies for not posting the last couple days. I’ve actually been working on some new stuff I hope we can use on our sister site, Space City Weather in the coming weeks. If I’m lucky, it will have application here too. Either way, progress on new things!

Atlantic business time?

The Euro, Euro AI, and GFS ensemble have had mid-2000s Flight of the Conchords on repeat, because to them, it’s just about business time in the Atlantic. We have two disturbances worth monitoring. Whether either develops remains to be seen.

The first and most time-sensitive area is Invest 95L, which is located southeast of Bermuda. This one should be no threat to land, including Bermuda at this point. The question is whether it has time enough to organize. I’m leaning no on this one, and if it does form, it won’t get much past depression or very, very weak tropical storm status. This one would be classified as a “throwaway” storm, one that gets a name, tacks on a smidge of accumulated cyclone energy (ACE), and dissipates almost as fast as it forms. Sort of like Cristobal.

The more notable area to watch is the wave emerging off Africa today. The NHC tags this one with a 50 percent chance of development. We again see this rather curious split where Google’s Deep Mind model is not at all enthused, while the global model suite and European AI model all want to slowly develop this over the next 5 to 7 days.

Google’s model has done very good this year at tempering expectations, whereas the globals have had their share of false alarms. That means something. And in this case, it would be sensible to keep our expectations low with respect to this system.

A couple notes about this one. First, it’s going to be moving west at a pretty good clip to start. This may disrupt the initial organization somewhat. Second, as it approaches the Caribbean, it appears that the Bermuda high is going to expand westward with it, meaning it may not turn north as quick as some other modeled systems have looked over the last couple weeks. However, the Bermuda high may begin to break down and retreat again next weekend allowing this disturbance to begin to gain latitude and probably turn north and northeast out to sea, but it’s something we’ll keep tabs on.

Again, the environment around the disturbance will probably feature some degree of wind shear and dry, stable air, so we’d classify the development chances as “marginally conducive” at best right now. The El Niño has not gone (and will not go) anywhere, so the root problems remain for systems trying to develop. We’ll keep watch, but again, low expectations here.

Other notes

Speaking of El Niño, if you start seeing strongly worded headlines, contrary to what we usually tell you here, believe them. The hype here is warranted to a point. This is far and away on the way to becoming the strongest El Niño we’ve seen in modern history. What it means for your day to day is obviously more nuanced than a headline or even we can tell you. But the usual El Niño hallmarks will be amplified in the months ahead. Here in the U.S., that means folks on the coasts will want to pay particular attention, as it will likely get stormy heading into fall and winter. Buckle up, California.

And speaking of the coasts... I gotta tell you, since moving to Connecticut last month, it reminds me of Houston. We’ve had north of 10 inches of rain over the last month, and in fact, Bridgeport, CT has a new record for summer rainfall: 2.35” yesterday puts them at 21.20” for Summer 2026, surpassing the summer of 1972 (of Hurricane Agnes fame) for wettest summer on record. Impressive to do this without a remnant tropical system.

Southern Connecticut and Long Island have seen north of 200% of normal rainfall since the beginning of July. Islip is sitting at their 9th wettest summer on record. Another half-inch to inch or so may fall before we hit September, so there’s time to work up the leaderboard or pad the stats some more. Wet, y’all!

Hawaii escapes Moke

Most gauges on the Big Island of Hawaii have been calm with Tropical Storm Moke passing well to the south of Hawaii. Still, some heavy rain has fallen in a few spots.

And a flood watch remains in effect through Monday afternoon. Thankfully not as bad as it could have been.

Share

Subscribe now

Happy Thursday. Trying not to inundate your inbox all week with mostly a repetitive outlook, hence why we were dark yesterday and Tuesday. But let’s check in on things today and see what has changed. The answer is not a ton. That said, we do have a couple things to watch.

Atlantic waves

We have two tropical waves over interior Africa. One will emerge today. The second is expected to emerge in the Atlantic by about Monday or early Tuesday. There seems to be a good bit of model agreement that the first one will fizzle but the second one has a chance to try to organize. I wouldn’t be shocked to see this area flagged on NHC outlooks by tomorrow. (There will be a third system in the open Atlantic but we’ll conveniently ignore that one for the time being)

That said, as we saw last week, there can be a fair bit of model support for something to happen and it never happens. We’ve seen that more than once over the last 2 to 3 seasons. The last go around last week saw Google’s Deep Mind operational model correctly be unenthused about tropical development. This go around? Well, there’s at least a little there there.

The overall weather pattern off Africa next week suggests that we’ll see a good bit of dry air, especially north of the waves. The first one will probably fall prey to this, and development odds seem quite low. The second one has at least some chance to fend the dry air off for a bit. We’ll also have a modest amount of wind shear around. The combination? It may be enough to allow for some slow development and also cap the system at a lower ceiling of potential intensity. Indeed, very few ensemble models, even on some of the more aggressive models intensify any potential system much.

Obviously, we’re getting a little ahead of our skis here going out a week and trying to predict the environment of a system that has yet to even emerge off Africa. Whatever the case, it is something to watch. But it is probably not going to amount to much. Model agreement is also good that we’ll see this system eventually turn northwest or north in the open Atlantic, meaning it probably won’t impact land. Again, it’s a ways out, so we’ll keep tabs on this for the time being.

Aside from that, there is nothing else notable in the Atlantic for the next week or more.

Hawaii again?

As Hawaii continues to recover from Lala, the next system to at least keep tabs on is in the wings. Invest 90E is a disturbance about 1,000 miles southeast of the islands. Most modeling keeps this system on the weaker side (unlike Lala which most had forecast to be a hurricane when it approached Hawaii). Google’s operational ensemble only has about 20 percent of members actually developing this. However, some prior iterations of GDM and some of the other AI modeling is more aggressive here.

Even Google’s 1,000 member ensemble is pretty aggressive with things. So for a storm that’s likely to impact the islands this weekend, we have uncomfortably high disagreement among modeling. Whatever the case, another round of potentially heavy rainfall and gusty winds is a plausible outcome for some of the same areas impacted by Hurricane Lala. While it’s impossible to really pin down the specifics yet, a 5 to 10 inch type rainfall is a possibility in some of the eastern/southern facing slopes of the Big Island and Maui. More to come on this one tomorrow.

Share

Subscribe now

Lala wrap-up

I won’t delve too much into the actual impacts to Hawaii, but as of this morning, roughly 115,000 customers remain without power across the islands, which is down a good bit since yesterday. For the latest on impacts across the islands, check the coverage at Honolulu Civil Beat or the Hawaii Tribune-Herald. Meteorologically, what played out was indeed fascinating.

Over 37 inches of rain was reported on the south end of the Big Island, at Nene Cabin, which is on the upslope of Mauna Loa reportedly at over 6,000 feet of elevation. Downwind, in the rain shadow of Mauna Loa? Under 1.5 inches of rain fell near Captain Cook. Incredible rain shadowing. Either way, the totals were impressive. On Maui, on the upslope of Haleakalā, over 24 inches fell at Waikamoi.

Similar impressive rain shadowing occurred there. Honolulu didn’t see much rain, but the mountains got hammered. Same story on the other islands as well.

In terms of wind, peak gusts topped out around 70 to 90 mph in the higher terrain from Oahu through the Big Island. A fair bit of wind also occurred at lower elevations, as evidenced by the number of outages, but they were not quite as potent as what we saw in the mountains.

Lala will be a memorable storm for Hawaii, though certainly not the worst they’ve seen.

Atlantic on lockdown

Back in the Atlantic basin, it’s been a little busier this month, with Cristobal and a couple invests, but both of those invests are now off the board. A look at the Atlantic this morning tells us, well, not much. It’s dead quiet, with the exception of the next robust wave emerging off Africa.

This one is likely to meet the same fate as its predecessors. The one behind it seems destined to reach invest status eventually, but the models are in good disagreement on development, with both the Euro ensemble and Euro AIFS trying to do something with it by late this week. Google’s Deep Mind is unimpressed. I would not be expecting much from these waves. They seem destined to eventually extinguish.

We’re now officially entering the peak of hurricane season. From now through about October 7th, the Atlantic basin climatology adds about 1 unit of ACE (accumulated cyclone energy) per day, taking us from around 15 units of ACE to 102 units. In other words, this is the window you historically see the bulk of hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin.

With El Niño, and a near-record one at that, the equation changes and “bulk of hurricane activity” tends to have a different, lower adjusted meaning. We are already seeing plentiful signs that El Niño is influencing hurricane season, and there’s absolutely no reason to expect change. Looking ahead to next week, the European model’s 45-day outlook continues to show below normal Atlantic activity.

Subsequent weeks? Much the same. And keep in mind that the European model has tended to be a little overzealous with recent tropical waves. So 40 percent of normal ACE the next 2 to 3 weeks may be generous.

Whatever the case, we shall see where this all goes. But for now, calm remains the word across the Atlantic.

Share

Subscribe now

Atlantic update

The risk of any tropical development in the Atlantic has all but vanished at this point, with the odds of Invest 94L developing down to 10 percent today.

This is very reminiscent of 2025, when the models would get a little excited about a wave in the Atlantic, only to have it stumble and faceplant in the end. Invest 94L looks to be obliterated by wind shear and dry air issues.

The next one to watch will be the next wave to emerge off Africa. At this point, I see no reason why this won’t meet a similar fate to 92L and 94L. We’ll keep watching.

Tropical Storm Lala

Meanwhile near Hawaii, Lala is beginning to bear down on the Big Island. Some of the higher elevation locations are gusting over 50 mph now.

There is still some chance that Lala could attain hurricane intensity on approach to the Big Island, but it’s not going to change the forecast impacts much. Strong winds, heavy rain, and rough seas remain the story.

As Lala passes the Big Island, the interaction with the mountains is likely to lead to some erratic movement and weakening. It will re-emerge on the other side, jostle north a bit, and then go back on its west-northwest track.

The total forecast rainfall from Lala has not changed a significant amount since yesterday, with upwards of 25 inches possible on the windward side of the Big Island. Yesterday, when I was discussing major impacts to the Big Island, I neglected to include 2018’s Hurricane Lane. Although it passed well south and west of the islands, it slowed, weakened, and allowed for punishing rains of almost Harvey levels to impact the Big Island. Lane’s problem was that it slowed and nearly stalled. In this case, Lala should continue moving. So generally speaking, while there will be serious rainfall with Lala, we probably aren’t looking at something like that.

Winds will likely cause some damage, especially in Maui and on the Big Island. The strongest winds will be in the high terrain and downwind from the higher mountains, with tropical storm force winds a possibility across the entire island chain. For places like Oahu, the intensity of the wind may depend a bit on how far north Lala comes before turning back west-northwest.

There’s a lot of spread still, with some model ensemble members coming only within about 60 to 80 miles of the other islands. So folks outside the hardest impacted areas will need to take this seriously.

After tomorrow, Lala will be on its way west and the cleanup can begin.

Share

Subscribe now

Atlantic update

Development odds on Invest 92L have been nudged back this morning, while Invest 94L is basically unchanged. Neither system looks especially great and neither has particularly good long-term prospects.

For Invest 92L, it will continue into the islands tonight and tomorrow, then across the southern Caribbean as a remnant. No further development is expected once in the Caribbean.

For 94L, the prognosis might be a little less grim. It’s playing the Tortoise and the Hare game, where slow and steady wins the race. In this case, “winning the race” is basically just acquiring status as a depression or tropical storm. It will move slowly west and west-northwest across the Atlantic, arriving at the doorstep of the islands by about early to midweek next week. The slow movement likely exposes it to strong wind shear at times. This will likely keep a lid on development prospects to some extent, which is why this carries about a 50/50 chance versus an 80/20 chance or something.

Neither Google Deep Mind, nor the AIFS really do much with this system. Even the occasionally robust European ensemble has little. Basically, 94L seems destined to be not much of anything.

Behind 94L, we don’t have any real specific systems of note, so the Atlantic continues onward quietly.

Tropical Storm Lala and Hawaii

Lala was named yesterday, shortly after our morning post. It’s a strong tropical storm now, with max sustained winds of 60 mph. Expect Lala to become a hurricane later today.

Lala is in an environment of low shear now, only around 6 kts or so out of the west, per tcatlas.org. If there’s one health issue with Lala, it’s that it’s got a bit of dry air stuck in the mid-levels of the storm. So while it’s doing well, it has some underlying issues that could impede it at some point. But for now, we’re on the way to hurricane intensity with Lala by later today in all likelihood.

As Lala comes west, it will begin to “feel” the impact of the Big Island of Hawaii. Mauna Kea is almost 14,000 feet tall, so that obviously has some impact on approaching storms. In this case, it will likely slow Lala down and may lead to erratic motion. As this happens, a boatload of rain will fall on the east/southeast facing side of the Big Island.

Upwards of 25 inches of rain could fall on the eastern part of the Big Island, on the east slope of Mauna Loa, south of Hilo in Puna, and just inland from Kilauea. Of course, having two monster peaks in Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa means the west side of Hawaii gets rain shadowed. So the Kona region may only see 1 to 4 inches of rain. Look for high totals on the east shore of Maui from Hana into the Upcountry, heading up to Haleakalā. Lower totals are likely for the other islands.

Obviously, concerns about flooding and mudslides will be high in southeastern parts of Hawaii and flood watches are posted for the Big Island and Maui.

Beach erosion and coastal flooding are possible in the islands, especially on the Big Island. And obviously, rough surf advisories are posted with the increasing swells likely ahead of Lala.

With breezy and dry conditions ahead of Lala’s circulation, there could be some elevated wildfire risk today (Friday) in the islands.

Lala is expected to be a category 1 hurricane as it passes the Big Island, so wind gusts will be strong, especially given the terrain impacts of the Big Island and Maui. Winds will be less of a concern farther to the north and west in the island chain.

Intensity-wise, Google’s Deep Mind shows Lala becoming a borderline category 2 storm as it passes the Big Island. Notice how it weakens after 48 hours. Land interaction may significantly disrupt Lala and it will need some time on the other side of the islands to get itself back together. Either way, this is likely to be a significant storm in terms of impact for Hawaii. This may be the most significant storm since 2014’s Tropical Storm Iselle on the Big Island.

Iselle was a hurricane ultimately, but a tropical storm as it passed through the Big Island. With Lala expected to be a hurricane and coming dangerously close to a direct hit, this could be a historic storm for the Big Island. A Hawaiian island last took a direct hit from a hurricane in 1992, when much stronger Hurricane Iniki hit Kauaʻi.

Folks in Hawaii should be prepared for Lala.

Share

Subscribe now

Atlantic side of business

In yesterday’s post we noted that, “there’s another system in the far north Atlantic that is not a threat to land, but we could see a throwaway depression or “C” storm before it dissipates.” Indeed, if you blinked, you may have missed that Tropical Storm Cristobal formed yesterday, and is on the way to dissipating today.

It appears as a “naked swirl,” or something more out of Cinnabon’s test kitchen. I’m just saying. Cristobal has thus far matched Arthur in ACE, which is to say less than 1, which is to say, basically a rounding error in a typical season. But weak storms count too, so there you have it.

Invest 92L

Meanwhile, south of Cristobal in the Atlantic Main Development Region (MDR) remains Invest 92L, a somewhat healthier looking tropical disturbance today.

92L isn’t exactly well organized but it’s better than it looked 24 hours ago. Models remain sort of split on whether or not this gets to a point if it actually develops, but given the look this morning, my hunch is that it will find a way. Still, wind shear is currently an issue, especially just north of the disturbance. And models are in decent agreement that it’s unlikely to pass much farther along than tropical depression status, keeping it generally poorly organized. This should allow for a due west track into the Caribbean, where doom awaits 92L’s future.

For the islands, this looks like a bit of a rainmaker but not much beyond that. Once in the Caribbean, it will be greeted by another shot of 20 to 30 knots of wind shear to the face, which should shred it apart. At this point, we don’t really expect any remnant to track as it continues west, so for the Gulf and western Caribbean, this is probably nothing to be worried about. We’ll obviously let you know if that changes.

Invest 94L

To the east of 92L is our latest Invest, 94L. While 94L looks less impressive than 92L this morning, it is carrying some thunderstorms, and it may be more apt to develop, as 92L has helped “seed” the lane in front of 94L with added moisture. It, too will have ample wind shear to fend off, however. The Atlantic is not for the weary of tropical systems right now. If 94L can survive that with some structure in tact, it may have a better long-term prognosis than its partner to the west.

Assuming it survives, it may begin to develop a bit more east of the islands. Otherwise, it is likely to meet a somewhat similar fate to Invest 92L. If it does develop, it will likely hook northwest and north into the open Atlantic. Currently, about 20 percent of reasonably decent ensemble members do this. And within the tropical models, the majority keep 94L below tropical storm intensity.

Conditions appear hostile overall, but it’s possible we sneak a depression out of this perhaps.

Right now, we just aren’t seeing the setup required to generate meaningful, higher end tropical activity. This is what was expected this summer, and it appears that’s what we’re getting.

Pacific potential

A good news/bad news type situation setting up for Hawaii. The good news is that it does not appear that Invest 93C, which has been reclassified as Potential Tropical Cyclone One-C is going to be a big time hurricane as it passes Hawaii. The bad news is that we do expect tropical storm impacts in Hawaii by this weekend.

The system is struggling to organize initially because of its sprawling nature. Over the next day or so, we should see it begin to consolidate around a formal center and slowly organize. Modeling is in decent agreement in a track near or just south of the Big Island, as well as slow, steady intensification. This should allow for a moderate tropical storm to track near Hawaii on Saturday. We should see tropical storm watches issued later today.

The European model has a track fairly close to the NHC’s track right now, just south of the Big Island. This allows for 10 inches or more of rain on the east and southeast facing slopes, with downwind rain shadowing lowering amounts to an inch or so on the northwest edge of the island. A similar story on Maui. These amounts may change in the coming days as the storm track and organization is finalized. This will increase the risk of flooding and mudslides on the Big Island this weekend.

Obviously, winds will be a concern too and will be honed in on as we get a bit closer. Some wind speeds could be enough to cause some damage in localized parts of the islands pending terrain effects. And fire weather may tick up as a concern tomorrow ahead of the storm. Interests in Hawaii should find local sources and follow them and heed the advice of local officials ahead of this storm.

Share

Subscribe now

A sorta busyish Atlantic

We are now up to about an 80 percent chance of development in the Atlantic today from the tropical wave we’ve been watching. It’s been tagged as Invest 92L as well, so we get more things to watch on it as it moves. Satellite tells you that this system is not exactly crushing it this morning.

Despite the lack of meaningful storms, there is a definitive “twist” to the disturbance right now, so it’s getting somewhere.

I would expect we see a depression out of this within a day or so.

The environment surrounding Invest 92L is not exactly ideal. While the system itself is somewhat cocooned in a small area, it has to deal with significant wind shear just north and on the southeast flank, as well as oodles of Saharan dust immediately north. Basically, there is going to be a functional limit on this system’s intensity because even if it does grow, it will immediately “feel” the shear and dry air more aggressively.

So what does that mean going forward? Well, Invest 92L, whatever it is, should be approaching the Lesser Antilles in about 3 to 4 days. As it gets there, it will have a couple choices. Either go north out to sea through a weakness in high pressure in the Atlantic, or continue west into the gauntlet that is the highly sheared Caribbean.

When dealing with tropics, we usually have a rule that goes “weaker west.” In other words, if 92L struggles, it will likely just keeping plodding west into the Caribbean. At that point, it would almost certainly succumb to wind shear, and that’d be that. If 92L can get a modest organization together, it would be more apt to “feel” the weakness in between the areas of high pressure in the Atlantic, the escape hatch if you will. In that case, it would likely turn north and probably end up heading out to sea. I think the smart money is to the west into the Caribbean.

Note, behind 92L is another tropical wave. You can see it on that Euro model depiction above. This one is currently flagged with 30% development odds. At this point, modeling seems to be very mixed on the future of this system. The AIFS and Euro are a little more excited, whereas Google’s modeling (both operational and the 1,000 member ensemble) are lukewarm.

The AIFS ensemble is above, and if you live on the East Coast, you’re probably looking at that and saying, “Um.” But the reality is a.) I’m not sure we even get to this point yet. And b.) This assumes the next wave even develops at all. The overall pattern is supportive of keeping any storm tracking north into the Atlantic out at sea, so if I live on the coast, I wouldn’t be sweating either of these waves right now. We’ll keep you posted.

There’s another system in the far north Atlantic that is not a threat to land, but we could see a throwaway depression or “C” storm before it dissipates.

Hawaii risks?

Shifting into the Pacific, we continue to track Invest 93C. Odds of development of this system remain high, but admittedly, it has been sluggish to really get going. This is decent news for Hawaii.

What to make of this? Well, the system itself is trying to get organized near that little red “x” on the image above. It looks close to maybe becoming a depression, so we’ll see we get that today. We are about 4 days out from Hawaii impacts. Over the last couple days, the upper end intensity of this disturbance seems to have faded a bit in the modeling. It is having to fight off a good deal of shear, but that should ease up in the next couple days. Likely, we see a depression, then tropical storm by tomorrow or Friday. As it approaches Hawaii this weekend, we should expect some degree of heavy rain, flash flooding, and gusty, possibly damaging winds on some of the islands. There’s still ample uncertainty on the exact track and intensity, so specifics are tough to nail down.

Another potential risk is wildfire ahead of the storm as winds increase and humidity drops. This will be something to also monitor in the next couple days as this system organizes and approaches.

Subscribe now

Share

Atlantic MDR system

Looking at satellite this evening, and the primary disturbance we’re watching in the Atlantic looks half decent.

We haven’t seen it hit “invest” classification yet, but I imagine we are not too far off. Over the next couple days, this disturbance will have mostly modest conditions to work with. There’s some shear, some dry air. Nothing is perfect here. But it may be enough to allow the system to try to slowly organize.

Since yesterday, we have seen some weather modeling get a little more bullish on potential development from this disturbance. Google Deep Mind’s model in particular has moved to about 25 percent odds of development here.

That’s a bit under the NHC’s 60 percent odds right now, but it’s still a decent signal when combined with the also relatively bullish AIFS and European model. As noted above, any development here is likely to be sluggish. The system is likely to have to battle some degree of wind shear into the rest of this week and weekend. In addition, it’s probably going to be surrounded by dry air and Saharan dust, or at least close enough in proximity to it that it acts against development. Overall, there’s no reason to believe that over the next 3 to 5 days at least this thing gets anywhere noteworthy with intensity. Hence, we are of the mindset of slow development.

Once it gets closer to the islands, maybe it can shake some of the drier air off, but I’m not convinced just yet. Still, if you live in or are visiting the Lesser Antilles, it probably makes sense to keep some casual tabs on what this system does through the week. However at this time, it still does not appear that we’ll have much of a menace on our hands. Farther out in time, I’m not sure we can say much coherently about this system, short of it is unlikely to be a big storm. More to come, of course.

Other Atlantic disturbances

The National Hurricane Center has modest odds on two other areas. The 10 percent one in the central Atlantic will likely fall prey to shear and dry air soon. The 10 percent one in the northern Atlantic is unlikely to do anything either. Onward.

Hawaii & Invest 93C

Well, to Hawaii now, and Invest 93C. This one looks a little frazzled today.

That said, we don’t really expect development for another 12 to 24 hours or so. Look for this to gradually become more coherently put together by tomorrow. From there, two things have changed since yesterday. First, the track has shifted slightly farther north, now bringing more of the Big Island into the forecast envelope (especially if you look at Google Deep Mind’s model).

Second, the max forecast intensity has dropped off some. Fewer models and ensemble members bring this to a major hurricane now. After 75% or more yesterday, we now have about 35 percent today. While that’s a rather large move, it’s still a noteworthy, healthy minority of members and a solution that should be taken seriously. Basically, interests in Hawaii should be monitoring Invest 93C very closely. Impacts are possible as early as later Friday or Saturday.

Share

Subscribe now

Atlantic picking up a bit

Back on Friday we talked about the potential for development in the Atlantic’s Main Development region as a wave pushed off the African coast. Well, as of today, the National Hurricane Center is identifying two areas to watch for development.

The front running disturbance is the one we discussed back on Friday. This one looks mediocre at best today, at least in terms of being organized.

To be honest, modeling also looks mediocre here, with roughly 0 to 10 percent of ensemble members across the board between the Euro, Euro AIFS, and Google Deep Mind showing development over the next 3 days. Generally speaking, this wave is also heading into an area with a lot of shear and dust, so the 20% odds by the NHC may be a bit generous here.

Now, the wave behind it has a little more support. While only about 10 to 20 percent of Google Deep Mind members develop this one, a fair number of Euro and AIFS ensemble members do develop it eventually. As we noted on Friday, it seems likely that any development here is likely to have a pretty low ceiling. That still holds true. The western Atlantic is not exactly super hospitable for tropical activity right now. This is more or less August being August above all else. Wind shear remains fairly strong in the western Atlantic and Caribbean.

Note that while the intensity on the 1,000-member Google Deep Mind ensemble increases as the storm turns northward, the number of members falls to single digits, meaning roughly 1 percent of members do this; highly unlikely.

I could foresee two likely outcomes from this wave. The first would be if it follows the Euro/AIFS logic of development, where it becomes coherent in 3 to 4 days or so. In that case, the system would be more likely to split the gap between high pressure in the Atlantic and probably curve out to sea. The second outcome is an incoherent tropical wave that makes it to the Caribbean and just gets sheared apart. Neither outcome is particularly menacing. At this point, I would say that the islands of the Caribbean should monitor the progress of this disturbance over the next week or so, however it remains highly unlikely that a severe system would impact the region at this time. Elsewhere, check back in a couple days from now and see where we are.

Other than these two systems on the board, the next thing to watch may be another deep Atlantic wave sometime the week of August 17th, which again looks minimally impressive in modeling at this time. Notably, if you look at the European subseasonal forecast from Saturday into the week of August 24th (and August 31st for that matter), Atlantic activity is expected to be below 50% of normal. This indicates to me that we are unlikely to see any significant burst of Atlantic activity the rest of this month. El Niño dominance over the basin is likely to persist.

Central Pacific and Hawaii

One area to watch that we don’t normally cover much in depth, however, is Hawaii. You can see that week 3 activity is running around 2 to 3x normal. Multiple models are pretty bullish on the disturbance out there right now, Invest 93C.

At this point, virtually all modeling keeps this south of Hawaii, but it likely is a system to keep an eye on over the next week or so, as the northern fringe of the forecast envelope just grazes the Big Island. Fringe impacts, such as gusty winds and rough surf would be likely to impact the islands eventually.

Google Deep Mind’s ensemble is quite bullish on fairly rapid intensification of 93C, with over 75 percent of members bringing this to major hurricane status (115 mph or greater). We’ll keep tabs here too.

Share

Subscribe now

Let’s start big picture and take a peek at the Atlantic basin this morning.

The standout feature is a tropical wave emerging off the African coast today. Over the next few days, this wave will track west through the Atlantic. Wind shear in the eastern Atlantic is actually not too bad at the moment. But dry air? Yeah, there’s a lot of that. Saharan dust plumage all over the Atlantic basin right now.

That looks more like July than August, but either way it’s choked with dust. This should mean anything that develops or tries to develop will struggle a bit, if not a lot. Regardless, there’s an interesting split within the models about the future of this disturbance. The physical European model, the original gold standard is modestly bullish on development over the next 4 days, with about a quarter of the 51 ensemble members developing the system.

Some develop it and kill it off pretty quickly too. Go to the AI version of the Euro and the story is, well, pretty much the same.

And what of the current gold standard, the Google Deep Mind ensemble? Not much.

I will say, all the models have had their moments, good and bad with genesis of tropical systems. So I’m not going to read into anything here too much. That said, the one notable takeaway here is that even the models that do develop the system to any extent (mainly the Euro) are lukewarm on its ceiling. Meaning, if you get development, you’re probably getting a sloppy system with a low top end intensity. Sloppy systems deserve love too though, so we’ll watch to see what happens here.

With that in mind, it does not appear at the moment that this system will be a serious threat to anyone downstream. It’s a reminder that despite El Niño, despite the hostile Atlantic, despite the quiet forecast it’s still August and worth checking in on things from time to time.

No other concerns are seen at this time in the Atlantic.

It’s August 3rd as I write this, and suffice to say, it has been a delightful tropical season for those of us who don’t want major hurricanes impacting communities. Arthur, while not the full cause of flooding in Louisiana and the broader Deep South, remains the most notable of our two storms so far. Our ACE has accumulated to 2.6 units thus far, not the lowest we’ve ever seen, but certainly on the lower end of the spectrum of recent years.

We typically average about 10 units of ACE by this point in the season, although that still only accounts for about 8.5 percent of total hurricane season. So, we’re a long way from the finish.

How has hurricane season been so quiet? Well, for one, it’s normal to be quiet in the first 2.5 months of the season. We’ve seen some catastrophic examples of that going awry over the years, but by and large, those years are very much exceptions rather than rules. So, climatology is your friend. But beyond that, there’s been the El Niño that has been talked up to the moon over the last few months. And it’s worthy of the hype; it’s one of, if not the strongest El Niño we’ve seen to this point in the modern era. El Niño means wind shear in the Atlantic, and big El Niños mean big wind shear. This year? No different.

Other than perhaps a few days in early to mid-June, wind shear in the Atlantic basin has been average to well above average this season. The Gulf and subtropical Atlantic has been a bit more subdued, whereas the Caribbean has been raging with shear. So El Niño is doing its thing.

And in fact, this particular El Niño remains on pace to become a first ballot hall of fame event. This event has been building and building all summer long. When you look at the total depth of the water temperature anomalies, you can clearly see that this event is absolutely romping.

As a sidebar, one thing I want to make sure the general public understands about this and the media ecosystem and content creation system today: You are going to hear people start making bold proclamations about El Niño and winter. Yes, winter. In August. It’s nonsense. People will cherry pick the most exciting (read: cold/snowy) model they can get their hands on for winter to basically draw you into engagement. They’ll couch it in language like, “This is only one solution, and it’s not necessarily likely to happen, but when I see this, I take notice!” It’s a digital dopamine hit. And it’s just not right, nor is it being a meteorologist. It’s picking a cold model because they know you, the reader or viewer gets excited about that, and it will spur you into engagement, which in turn helps you to feed the beast, as it were. It used to be rogue “social mediarologists” that did this, but it has gotten far worse and extended into professionals that know (or should know) better, particularly on the broadcast side of things. And a lot of the legacy media tries to draw you in with big, bold headlines too. Bottom line: If someone is selling you a historic cold or snowy winter right now, don’t buy the hype. Sure, there could be a storm or two -- as happens almost every winter. That’s not exactly a forecast; it’s called climatology. This winter is likely to be historic in some way given the El Niño, but real history points toward either a very warm planet or high precipitation values and drought in various different parts of the globe.

Anyway, off the soapbox. El Niño is feeding the wind shear machine. The other issue? Water temps. The Gulf? Warm. The Caribbean? Less warm. The Atlantic Main Development Region? Not warm at all.

We are near climo in the deep tropics. And that’s not going to cut it with this sort of wind shear environment we are in. Basically, this points to development occurring through closer to home systems that could fire up if wind shear relaxes for even a couple days at the right (wrong) time. Or by waves, disturbances, or remnant fronts that make it closer to the much warmer subtropical latitudes off the East Coast or in the open Atlantic. We could still see a few weaker tropical systems out in the deeper Atlantic. But Cabo Verde season seems increasingly unlikely to replicate what Cabo Verde’s soccer team did at the World Cup this year.

Still, watch we will. But at this time, all looks quiet the next week or two.

Share

Subscribe now

Northeast recap

Back on Monday, we took a look at forecast rainfall for the upcoming days, noting that there were some decent risks for 5 inches or more of rainfall. Tuesday’s rainfall forecast through Thursday evening highlighted the Hudson Valley, western Connecticut, and northeast New Jersey for the highest rainfall totals.

So how have we done?

A couple things. The overall forecast was decent. However, rain totals were underestimated in New York State and slightly overestimated in Connecticut. But overall, this was a decent forecast. The totals in the Hudson Valley up through the Capital Region of New York State were incredible.

For Albany, Wednesday was the second wettest day on record (going back to 1874). Of the 10 wettest days on record in Albany, six have been produced via direct impacts from tropical systems, a seventh may have been related (8/31/1950) to interior landfalling storms in the Central U.S., and three were not directly affiliated with tropical systems, including yesterday.

So it’s unusual for Albany to receive this much rainfall from a non-tropical storm. Atmospheric moisture levels were in the 90th percentile in Albany Tuesday night into Wednesday and closer to the 95th percentile on Long Island. In other words, it was a deeply moisture-rich environment. If you look at the total precipitable water from 2 AM Wednesday, you can see almost like a miniature atmospheric river pointed right at the Hudson Valley.

All this moisture, coupled with a slow-moving upper low oriented just right to allow bands of moisture to burst into the Capital Region continuously helped lead to some of those ridiculous rainfall totals. According to the most recent Public Information Statements from the NWS, the highest totals came from Schodack, NY (11.79”), Kinderhook, NY (11.47”), and Valatie, NY (10.31”).

All in all, this was a rather impressive rain event, especially considering the lack of a deep tropical moisture connection or direct tropical system impacts.

Tropics? Not here

The tropics are busy in the Pacific with the second category 5 storm of the week (Genevieve in the Eastern Pacific earlier this week was the other), this time in the West Pac. Super Typhoon Dolphin is back to category 4 intensity now, but it had peaked earlier today as a cat 5 storm.

Dolphin is likely to head toward China or South Korea over the next week to 10 days.

Meanwhile, in the Atlantic, we got nuttin. Some of the AI modeling is trying to latch onto a weaker system in the deep Atlantic in about 10 days or so, but nothing suggests a likely storm, let alone a strong one. Something we’ll watch, but nothing we’re concerned with.

Share

Subscribe now