UPDATED 2 PM Flash Flooding in Baltimore DC Area -Thoughts on the Tropics on September 10th as the Seasons Begin to Change. What Does That Mean for the Tropics? African Waves vs Cold Fronts.

94L moved inland without development and has been removed from the NHC Main Page.

The area in the Bahamas is up to 40% with a chance for development in the GOM. 

The big news day is that NOAA issued a La Nina Advisory so that's official, we are in La Nina mode. What does that mean? Usually stronger hurricanes and it has an impact on what our winter will be like. Also Paulette is forecast to get close enough to Bermuda as a Hurricane that it may be able to write it's on Travel Blog. Rene is forecast to stay out at sea but as always stay tuned. Think about what I said below and know this is the CV Season, soon we begin to look towards the Caribbean for development but these new waves should  become hurricanes not struggling Tropical Storms. 

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/september-2020-enso-update-la-ni%C3%B1a-here

Red circle is sill at 90% by Africa it's friend in orange at 40% in the 5 day period. I'll discuss models tomorrow as it's too soon to buy into any one scenario. But long range models show this new batch of waves developing moving towards the Caribbean as well as Florida as a front approaches  The blog today explains how as we move deeper into September every system becomes a timing issue between an approaching front and a possible hurricane.  But note the big story today is the flash flooding in the Washington DC area into Baltimore and up I-95. Water rescues going on currently. 

 

Blog today is in parts. Pictures at the top with short explanations. A Cliff Notes version of what the day may bring in the tropics and a long read at the bottom as I needed to write and get somethings out of my system that may help you understand what is going on in the weather world this week and what is not going on and why the models are having a problem finding the right solution to our questions and why models that showed a strong cold front were dismissed by many as we try to sift out way through models that are sometimes right and sometimes wrong and a plethora of possibilities down the tropical road while we wait to see which wave will be that one that may become the classic long tracker hurricanes that we expect in September; we don't always get what we expect to get but often we do and often this year we get the unexpected.

What we do expect currently is the next wave off of Africa should get much further West than Paulette and Rene and the low yellow chances of trouble will provide more rain along the East Coast from Florida up into he Mid Atlantic until the cold front comes and blows it out to sea. The high is forecast to build back in but will it? That's the question, we should see in real time though the models are doing their thing so stay tuned.   Blogger is being difficult as it tries to make changes the way Facebook did and Twitter did and well change seems to be blowing in the wind.  

I'll update the blog after the 8 AM new update ..

..on our colorful circles in the tropics.

I wrote a bit this morning.

Read if you are in the mood and I'll be back.

Thanks for your patience.

Mother Nature hates a vacuum, call it that or call it Planet Earth. It is always trying to get back to normal or move on to the next stage that being the next season in most latitudes of the world. North Florida is part of that world, South Florida is not as it's part of the "seasons" and the seasons are defined by tourists or the type of fruit that is in season or that time of year that exists for a few months where the air is less humid, the palm trees sway and everyone there is happy to be there. The rest of the country lives in the zone where fronts begin to make a difference, trees lose their leaves and people dream of that time when it's cold enough to sip pumpkin spice latte. Florida is all about frappes because unless you say you want a latte the guy at Starbucks knows you want a frappe because it's too hot and humid to sip a latte.  

We are one country but there are parts to it obviously that are not like other parts. Some people like the heat and others can't stand it. Florida is tropical, Arizona is not tropical and the area between the Canadian border and down around latitude 30 North is beginning to long for frontal boundaries and waiting for the leaves to turn and after that snow begins to fall. When snow falls in late Spring on trees filled with early blossoms it's not good for the tree even though people enjoy that last taste of Spring. And, when snow falls in early fall or late summer depending on which measure you use trees tip over from strong winds and snow weighs heavy on oak trees with leaves that are confused, already exhausted from a long hot summer and everyone gets overwhelmed. It makes for great video to show on The Weather Channel but weather not in the right season confuses trees and plants as much as it does people.  Like when Jim Cantore says it has to be a certain degree outside before he'll taste that Pumpkin Spice Latte; Jim Cantore gets it because he understands the way of the world at least weather wise. He also understands coffee and the water vapor loop.

The tropics are a huge area and they come alive and thrive differently in different areas and that's why sometimes the Caribbean can kill off weak waves and wandering wavering storms that have not attained good form and lack the title of hurricane before entering the Caribbean. Yet, in other times of year the Caribbean is a very welcoming place as the East Atlantic becomes less welcome and we worry on storms forming into hurricanes that come up out of the South catching cold fronts that are already entrenched and diving deep down and sweeping them up towards Florida and the East Coast and Texas sighs a sense of relief knowing their chances of threats have abated and there's a chill in the air at night as locals long for snow.

There is a rhyme and a reason that exists to the world in the realm of the atmosphere, but exceptions abound and every year is unique and has it's own unique rhythm to it. This year has been odd both existentially and emotionally for many dealing with a world plague that many of us thought was relegated to history books and financial trouble for those who lost jobs and a measure of normal. Then the weather does what it always does in that it does it's thing and it's hard to try and make sense of it all and that's why Jimmy Buffett wrote a song called "trying to reason with hurricane season" and why people look to models to give them some heads up to prepare for what often is the unexpected because we only know so much, a small measure of what we need to know. The weather remains unpredictable, because often it is and that's why so many people are attracted to this field as it's an evolving mystery we are always trying to grasp, perhaps a metaphor for life. 

Bottom Line in my old fashioned long form blog today is that sometimes good waves roll off too early and the water is warm but the Caribbean is still closed for action and other times storms form close in as Camille did (not a long tracker for the bunch who likes long trackers) and rearranged the lives and the landscape of people living in Louisiana and Mississippi for a long time. Camille became a measure of a "Major Hurricane" in the same way the 1926 Hurricane became "the Hurricane" to a generation of Miami people whose lives were frozen in time when it slammed into the city of Miami just barely 30 years old giving the population a taste of what adulthood felt like after a wild ride in their boom time of the the 1920s when youth seemed as if it would last forever. If you live in the tropics at some point you get a hurricane, even Tampa learned that in 1921 and if you live up North in the winter at some point you will get snow. It's the way of the world.

The distant Atlantic where waves roll off of Africa has an expiration date on it and that date is coming soon.  Sometimes a wave doesn't develop fast and makes it into the Caribbean and explodes where others before it have in October where abundant heat is available and eventually they find their way North; even Mitch that made landfall down there and looked to be gone eventually found it's way back up to the Northern latitudes after wreaking death and destruction in Central America as a mediocre washed out tropical storm that washed villages away as water rushed down the hillsides and ravines and it became a measure for storms in that region that time of year as did Camille and the 1926 Miami Hurricane in their regions and I'll add in Sandy that made it up to New York as other legendary storms have done but few actually do.

So where does this leave us now? It's September 10th, peak of the season yet the waves that recently rolled off of Africa hit a brick wall of shear and the high disappeared just when everyone thought they would do what they normally would do and travel West or WNW as strong hurricanes. The models showed a strong front, too strong for this time of year, and it appeared as predicted and slashed it's way through Utah and Colorado bringing them hurricane force wind conditions and layering their beautiful big trees with heavy snow; heavy snow for September and winds rarely seen in that area in early Fall. It happens, because in truth "Mother Nature" does what it wants to do and we adjust in real time. Raleigh has seen two cold fronts that lasted for a few days and our night time temperatures dipped won into the high 50s and low 60s and people began to dream of winter. The Western Atlantic is more welcoming than the Eastern Atlantic oddly and the Caribbean is waiting to see what it gets as eventually weak waves moving west under a high will find their way into their part of the world or an early cold front pushes into the Caribbean, falls apart and something begins to form at the base of it while it's languishing in tropical waters. If a wave becomes strong and wraps early on it goes further North towards the Poles and scares Bermuda if it gets that far West.... before it gets picked up by an approaching front.  And on any given Sunday if the front falls apart and a hurricane is strong enough and the high is where we expect the high to be then it approaches the East Coast and everyone remembers it's still hurricane season until November for a reason. And, that's the way of the world.

For those of you who enjoy my writing when I go long, thank you. For those who didn't get this far down I understand, really I do. Long reads are for those who like to read and for those who like to, or rather need to write. It's been a long few weeks with me being in the place I am not usually this time of year but because of Covid I stayed home in North Carolina when I'm usually in Miami or coming back from Miami and as much as I love the seasons in Raleigh I do not like summer here or what's apparently called ragweed season as it throws my breathing and allergies off. It's not a Miami thing though the Mango blossoms do upset a lot of people with allergies as does the Saharan Dust but the Carolinas are a hotbed of allergy trouble this time of year. And, now due to fires on the West Coast they know what it's like to have technicolor skies the way we get in Miami from Saharan Dust and sometimes from fires in the Everglades. Every places has it's good times and it's bad times and unless you are a gypsy or you hit the road like one, you have to wait it out through the bad times. 

The only way to deal with anything this year is to expect the unexpected and to be thrown off balance one way or the other and then to get up, pull yourself together and roll with the punches and  try to do your best to find your own normal, your peace or your balance the way dancers finding the right rhythm for the right moves to the beat of the music and to a weather person it means ignoring bad models and waiting for the environment to change and better models to come along and to watch the flow and know the signs of when things are changing as they do from region to region eternally as the seasons never come exactly on time when we change the calendar page but sometimes early, sometimes late and sometimes at their right time. That's why the prayer in most religions in different regions of the world is for rain to come in the right season.

Thanks for your patience, your kind thoughts and keep watching because in reality the greatest show on earth is truly meteorology and atmospheric science. It's where left brain meets right brain and right brain appreciates left brain and it never ends it just keeps going with the next act always around the corner and that is what makes Planet Earth a place we can live and love and enjoy the beauty of the seasons; in Montana that may mean leaves changing colors and in Miami it means cool nights and balmy days in January. 

Good luck trying to reason with hurricane season or winter when it comes early or rain when it doesn't fall in the right season.

I'll update at the top later in the day when things change. For now we have a patchwork quilt of two seasons, colorful circles and plentiful possibilities but will they develop into good storms or bad storms and will they find their own yellow brick road? Only time will tell. 

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter and Instagram..

A song as promised.. Freebird, stuck in my head after Mike spoke on it nonstop this morning.

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