Partnership in the Tropics

On topic here.

Everyone is always trying to find the magic bullet when studying Hurricanes.

Dry May, Dry June.

Rainfall in the Sahel Region.

El Nino.

Water Temps.

MJO... water oscillation patterns and other initials that go bump in the night.

Truth is they are only factors in partnership.

I.E. Yes.. if there is more rainfall over Africa there is a chance of wetter, tropical waves coming off of Africa. For sure. No duh. Really.

If the dry May/dry June pattern stays in effect it usually means a massive High Pressure Area has set in and will aim any strong storms this way... South Florida will be under the gun.

El Nino does not bring an active Atlantic Hurricane Season...then again it always seems one or two get through.

MJO has to work in tandem with the wet part of the African Wave season and you can't have some big upper level low out there breaking up the path across the Atlantic shooting storms up the middle of the Atlantic to the Danger Zone for Tropical Storms.

If the big, bad waves get too bad too fast.... whoosh they start pulling too north, don't stay lower in the groove and don't make it across.

Everything has to work in parntership to make an active, busy season. Sometimes some loner storm does his or her thing and creates havoc in an otherwise quiet season. Happens.

Landmasses often break apart a storm, something the models were reminded recently but then again... Georges did not die over Puerto Rico, Hispanola or Cuba on his trek west north west. And, with just a little variation in his track he would have hit Miami not the middle/lower Keys and can that really be attributed to wet or dry May of that year or the immediate steering patterns that week that were steering Georges?

Dr. Gray works on his mathematical equation, so does NOAA and NASA and TWC... we all work on it. Jim works on it. ORTT does... SNONUT does and probably quite a few Tropical Nuts who aren't even registered online.

But no one has yet to come up with the perfect mathematical answer.

I don't think there is one. Climatology works. Atmospheric Science has it's rules.

But on a day to day... hour by hour study of the tropics, it's all very fluid. And, like any good ... real partnership, there is a lot of give and take involved for there to be any real staying power..or to make a lasting impression.

Something to think on tropically speaking as we wait on the brink of the Atlantic Hurricane Season of 2005.

Bobbi