Want to talk about something I brought up on www.hurricanecity.com that is almost like being peer reviewed as people there love to share thoughts and try and add to or shoot down any theory that doesn't sit right. I've learned so much from the gang there, love it... but here I want to add a few things.
First though... a note of interest in the Tropical Weather Discussion this morning.
Says...
AN ATLANTIC OCEAN TROPICAL WAVE IS ALONG 40W SOUTH OF 11N
MOVING WEST 10 KT. Time to smell the coffee gang.. this is big news. Waves at 11N.. NORTH... not down around 5N or near the equator like in some years but up in healthy places where the Coriolis effect starts to work and things start to spin and move west. Interesting... makes you wonder if it will be an early Cape Verde season. Something IMPORTANT as there has been talk (just talk for now) that later in the season we could switch from our current almost neutral phase to an El Nino phase that could bring an early end to the normal Cape Verde Season.. Wishes if you ask me and not facts by people who want to right off a season when it hasn't even started. We deal in realities..not 15 day forecasts, not predictions in May for October and if we were all that good at such predictions we'd all have won the lotto by now as I am sure it's mathematically possible to figure out by someone..
So... look at picture I posted. Why did I post it? Because that is one strong wave that is on the African Wave Train Highway.. the one that Dr. Hope loved to talk about on his Road to the Virgin Island Movies he put out on the Tropical Update.. that wave is set to pass over the beach at Dakar and when they start to do that.. they are players, not wannabes but real players.
We might have a Bertha Player this year and we have had a lot of cold fronts and I think this will be a wet June and I think South Florida will get hit by storms from the SW and South... whereas with all those fronts up the coast and the strong pattern west to east... anything out there that gets past a break in the high that can recurve up the Atlantic may.. just may threaten the Carolinas during a September to Remember in 2008.
Something to think on...
Check the stats.... wet Junes also correlate with WET Tropical Events in Florida on a frequent basis.
Love you all... cool front made it through on Saturday, had some nice drizzle on a gray morning, cool evening so that I could wear my jeans and now the sun is out...
Late Twisters... Wet Junes... I'd worry more on that than Dry Mays.
The Dry May Theory is only half of the picture and it is usually seen as a set up where there is a strong high over Florida and the Bahamas that if it stays in place... brings in Hurricanes later in the season.
It is one of many theories...
Truth is...it's less about the high locked in over Florida which happens often but in August and September sometimes does funky things and allows storms from the East or ESE to come in under the high or be propelled at the state faster than a speeding bullet like Andrew when turned West ...
The reason South Florida is often DRY going into the season is because frontal systems are not making it down the state and we are not getting winter rain...
Dry fronts or weak fronts that die out are not the same as those that barrel through the south causing strong twisters and then hang and drape themselves over South Florida.
When the slightest weakness in a ridge opens the storm grabs the weakness..there is a lack of troughs acting like a magnet pulling, tugging the hurricanes further north and wnw or nw towards our wonderful shores.
Years that have wet winters combined with many constant fronts set up a zone of weather activity that later in the season .. attract storms from the Caribbean up into Florida from the SW and South.
Every year in April and May the moisture begins to get scarce in Florida.. fronts stop parading down, heat sets in, high builds in.. you go to the beach and feel the breeze.
WET JUNES... years where the monsoons begin in May and continue through June.. often coincide with years when South Florida got hit later in the year from the backside by some wet, watery, strong hurricane or strong tropical storm pumping in tons of moisture from the Carib traveling the same wet highway that years where late cold fronts gave South Florida lots of Winter Wetness.
As far as I am concerned. South Florida gets hit MORE in October (and I would say early strong waves with borderline TS status) than we do in those Septembers we love to Remember.
So... a Wet Winter... and Junes with rainfall are to me something that makes me sit up and pay attention.
Hurricane Andrew did not hit us because we had a dry May or because there was a strong high... It hit South Florida because the front that was supposed to catch it and tug it north...died out... and only THEN did the high shove it west.
It's a two part scenario.. yes the high built in but if the front had been strong, the low pressure system driving the front had been wound up like a pitcher on a hot streak... the dynamics wouldn't have been the same and Andrew may have been a Carolina storm afterall.. or recurved off shore like so many do.
The Dry May is something ominous like Jaws Music that begs you to watch the high and how it sets up in August and September but... a Wet Winter with a Wet June is a stronger predictor that South Florida will get Tropical Weather in any given hurricane season.
I have data at home (in NC on vacation now) but... look at years South Florida got hit by wet, wet, big storms that flooded out the area..and you will see years that had strong rainfall in June earlier in the season.
Often.. not always, nothing in tropical science is a sure thing.. always some quirky kink in the system that throws off the statistics carefully gathered by scientists.
Wet Junes.. late season cold fronts... wet August are often early winter cold fronts. Of course.. if and it's a BIG IF.. El Nino shows his ugly face that may squash the frontal boundaries or mess up the deck of cards...
Love you all.. love to hear your thoughts.
Love and Kisses from North Carolina..
Besos Bobbi
