Hurricane Harbor: Tropics Monday. Models and Possible Trouble in EPAC & Down the Road in the GOM? Beach Days, Sunshine, Palm Trees and Thunderstorms. Color, Maps and Make Up :)

Using this very popular site to view the ocean's temperatures it's obvious that the extreme heat anomaly off the East Coast could become a problem should a long traveling wave make it to our side of the Atlantic or should some tail end of a dead front try to spin something up close in to the coast. If this was August 1st and the water's off the coast of Africa were the color palette for the new Cool Wave Dior eye shadow I'd be getting ready to write off the Cape Verde Hurricane Season. However, this is early June and it's typical for things to be too cool out there this time of year. What SAL does not kill the cooler ocean temperatures destroy totally until later in the season. Oddly the warmer parts of the ocean are orange and gold the other new eye shadow palette for the summer of 2018.

I don't know why people sit around in June before the tropics get active debating whether El Nino or La Nina is going to win out when ever we are in a Neutral pattern but they do. Those same people spend the next few months arguing which model is better or whether Samsung phones are better than the Cult Classic iPhone. We seem to be caught up indefinitely in arguing one side vs the other be it politics, phones or meteorological modeling. Climo always weighs in on one level or another even if other factors are mitigating and have a strong decisive input on how the Hurricane Season actually plays out.

In truth this time of year belongs to the EPAC basin when the A and B storm usually form way before we even have a viable tropical wave; obviously this year the Atlantic Basin won that tropical shoot out. A rule of thumb that doesn't mean anything scientifically but that usually plays out is you count 7 to 10 days after the Epac gets busy before something spins again in the Caribbean. In this case there is the possibility of another Alberto like system forming in the same area, being pulled North towards the Central Gulf Coast with much weather to the right of the center. Mind you that "center" is totally in theory and nothing more other than as we say innuendo and her cousin speculation. Such a system would be within the realm of climo and the current weather pattern.

90E has indeed formed in the EPAC and already has it's map grid in place and that's one step before it's actually designated usually so stay tuned for Aletta forming in the Eastern Pacific. Again their season starts on May 15th a full two weeks before ours so we expect June to be filled with Epac systems vs Atlantic spinners. During this period in the Atlantic Cousin SAL (Saharan Dust for newbies) rules the ocean drying out a good part of the atmosphere while African waves come off too low and land in waters too cool anyway to get anything going. Dabuh explains this with his always entertaining and sometimes cryptic posts that are usually on the money.

The tongue he is speaking of is shown below.

SAL shows up in dark reds.

One thing meteorologists love to do is look at maps; some even draw their own maps. And we love color as color shows the intricacies and every little feature on the map; the highs, the lows, the warmth, the cold as well as the air flow with arrows and comments. Color makes everything better when explaining a complicated set of patterns in the atmosphere. If it was easy we wouldn't be so intrigued.

I love make up.

I bought the purple eye liner.

Of course...

...I own the blue Dior palette.

As much as I love the black and white water vapor loop...

...our eyes assign meaning to colors.

Blue is the cool ocean.

Blue is the sky.

Red is fire.

Red is warm and hot.

Cranky's map is easy to understand...

..with his arrows and use of color.

And, June is the time of year to study the trends as winter phases away, the high moves into place and the Sonoran Heat Ridge sets up. Cold fronts begin to collapse, warm moist air from the Caribbean moves North towards Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. And meteorologists and weather people discuss details and possibilities. This is June, this is who we are and this is the way of the weather world.

Cindy with her right sided rain shield.

Today in South Florida.

I spoke to soon this morning and this afternoon the heavens opened up in South Florida and it poured for a few hours. I lay in bed with the AC set to about 70 degrees at my son's house listening to the sounds of the rain against the aluminum awning old fashioned Florida hurricane shutters. Any old Miami kid knows what I'm talking about; but the I never realized the sounds of the rain made tropical music that sounded like a steel drum band. It was beautiful. The dogs do not think the sounds of the rain are beautiful and they bark every time it thunders. This morning we had breakfast on A1A in Ft. Lauderdale with palm trees and sunshine. It was so hot by 11 AM as in hot as blazes which implies the atmosphere was on fire as in red, hot heat.

As for the volcano in Guatemala I'll talk on that another day. Oddly after the colorful pictures of the volcano exploding we are inundated with pictures of the green landscape covered in white ash as the search goes on for more victims. That's not snow. And as far as the ash goes it's an unhealthy, dangerous situation and the death toll is into the high 60s so far and will only climb higher. This summer may end up going down as one geologically active as well as tropically busy.