Hurricane Harbor: Tropical Waves & Bertha Waving Bye Bye.. What's Next? Miami Love . . .

Okay . . I woke up this morning to find Bertha being Bertha. Here today, gone tomorrow. Messy weather with a disorganized look to it, a displaced center and recon trying to decide whether or not she is a closed system. No longer a hurricane, she is a tropical storm and a messy one.

Occurs to me that Tropical Storm Bertha is the best example of the saying "it is what it is" and note I've never liked that saying but it definitely works for Bertha. Usually it's a cop out, a real sign of "I'm too lazy to try and change the situation" but in the case of Bertha... she simply is what she is . . What you see is what you get??

One can watch the drama of Bertha on the loop below. She simply went too fast for her own good and never slowed down to smell the roses. You can also see the smallest spin trying to begin where the wave that was running in stealth mode East of the Islands is flaring up. There is the smallest purple dot on the

Your typical purple colors for the Cape Verde Islands that is now spewing off waves regularly into the Saharan Dust Cloud that still owns that part of the world. A small purple sliver for the wave that was previously hiding cloaked in dust, devoid of convection looking "all that" in the Atlantic this morning. Oh...and there's a red-violet Bertha/remnants of the front, the wave and Bertha off the East Coast.

You may wonder where "THAT" came from... it's been there but cooler waters & dust masked it for a bit.

Look at the image below and see the red dust that owns the Eastern Atlantic Currently.

The white poof far to the West trying to escape the grip of Cousin Sal.

I know I've said this before and I'll say it again as it is what it is this 2014 Atlantic Hurricane Season.

ALL of the discussion leading up to this season have been on how storms would form close in and that the most favored areas for development were off the US coastline vs far out in the Atlantic. Every time a wave pops up everyone forgets that and focuses on the wave or wannabe hurricane. The models show some development and everyone goes orgasmic and begins the next wave of fantasizing about the possibilities. We've all become slaves to the models. I try not to be, but it's hard to ignore it when the GFS or the EURO starts whispering sweet little nothings about Bertha or Cristobal (the next name on the list) and as we all know it only takes one.... we keep thinking maybe this will be the one.

A friend asked me online yesterday if the Atlantic is totally shut down and if we will ever have another...

Of course we will, though possibly not this year. The jury is still out on that one. I don't give "forecasts" as much as I give my thoughts and explanations for what the NHC is forecasting. A sort of cliff notes on deeper meteorological discussion that I do understand, but sadly most people do not making for confusion and distrust by the general public. They do a great job discussing the Tropical Atlantic every day, several times a day in what we refer to as the "TWO".

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATWDAT+shtml/050559_MIATWDAT.shtml?

It's actually easier to read these days than it used to be when it was more fragmentary filled with abbreviations and terminology that was hard for the general public to understand.

Note below...the bright red ball of convection that many will notice this morning and wonder why it doesn't have a name is a wave being discussed here:

"AN ATLANTIC OCEAN TROPICAL WAVE IS ALONG 58W/59W FROM 12N TO

23N...MOVING WESTWARD 20 KNOTS. CONVECTIVE PRECIPITATION... 
SCATTERED STRONG FROM 12N TO 14N BETWEEN 55W AND 56W. ISOLATED 
MODERATE FROM 9N TO 23N BETWEEN 50W AND 60W."

Note with or without a yellow X or a yellow circle the NHC is watching it for us. There is also a wave in the Caribbean close to very warm sea temps that is being watched and some locally strong weather inside the general area. See the Caribbean satellite I'm posting below the discussion.

A CARIBBEAN SEA TROPICAL WAVE IS ALONG 66W/67W FROM PUERTO RICO 
TO VENEZUELA...MOVING WESTWARD 15 KNOTS. CONVECTIVE 
PRECIPITATION...ISOLATED MODERATE TO LOCALLY STRONG IN THE 
WESTWARD-MOVING LOW CLOUDS THAT ARE BETWEEN 60W AND 71W.

All 3 areas. What's left of Bertha off the East Coast.

Tropical Wave approaching the islands.

Smaller Wave south of Cuba sitting over very warm water.

So....today it's back to the basics of life.

Is the water warm enough?

Is there shear in the area?

Are pressures dropping?

Is convection persisting?

Does it have a real center of circulation?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwLe6P2BIeQ

This is what we do during the Hurricane Season as we watch the mangoes get bigger and oddly this year they seem to be ripening with the avocados (explain that one). We watch the ocean in Miami Beach turn this surreal iridescent pea soup green. We watch pale white German Tourists turn redder than the Saharan Dust loop as they burn in the tropical August sunshine. And, we watch the satellite loops and the models for the next named storm.

One thing we do this particular year is watch the fronts progressing to the SE. Note the loop of the first satellite image I posted this morning. Count them.. 1 down by the coastline that swept up Bertha and one back over the Continental US. They are stacking up like planes flying out of Miami on Sunday Nights to go back to where ever people come from after spending the weekend here. The front that's back near Ohio where someone is packing up their bags and moving to Miami to get away from this rapidly coming Winter. Come on down... no snow...

It's what Miami was built on... the promise of no snow.

In Raleigh people who moved South from Minnesota are always upset when it snows. Obviously they were passing notes in geography when they were talking on where the snow line runs... as it snows in NORTH Carolina. The leaves change a bit in Jacksonville, a touch of the seasons. West Palm Beach and Tampa sometimes get really cold. But..........in Miami the flowers are ALWAYS in bloom, purple, orange and gold and butterflies dance in the air all year long. We wear our favorite colors 365 days a year without being told not to wear aqua tops in October when it seems summer is finally all over up north. We live in black tops, tank tops, sandals and platform heels all year. No worrying on navigating the snow or the ice...just an overly frisky tourist from up north looking for too much fun while drunk on mojitos on South Beach.

Music plays on the street in Miami as it drifts out of restaurants and bars with sidewalk tables even in August and young Cuban men get dressed up downtown in suits as older Cuban men wear Guyaberas and the girls all dress up beautiful even if they aren't feeling that way when they wake up... we put our tropical shine on in Miami. And, that is why I love it so much.

I love a lot of places. I even love some places up north and a few out west like Seattle and nothing is like a walk in Central Park with a bottle of water on a hot summer day... but there is nowhere like South Florida.

So.. let's get back to the basics of life today and keep our eyes out for the next named system.

Warm water is necessary:

IF a strong, stubborn wave that eludes the Saharan Dust that owns most of the Atlantic gets into any of these red sunburned colors then pay close attention. And, oh if you happen to be in Key West tonight and the sky turns odd crimson colors at sunset... it's probably not because you had too many Key Lime Martinis but because there is a little bit of Saharan Dust in the atmosphere. So point...shoot and buy some local art from the local tourists who mostly moved here it seems from Ohio and Minnesota so they can do a better job avoiding the snow than the tropical waves are doing avoiding Cousin Sal aka Saharan Dust.

Love you all... I'll be updating on Twitter @Bobbistorm and I'll update the blog later today if and when something newsworthy happens.

Besos Bobbi

Ps We even put on a good face on our buildings under construction and by the way...if you live in Ohio currently it's going to be a really mean, early winter so you might want to hit the road and do your construction work down here where Miami is experiencing a building boom ... again.