A writer and a tropical muse. A funky Lubavitcher who enjoys watching the weather, hurricanes, listening to music while enjoying life with a sense of humor and trying to make sense of it all!
Friday, November 15, 2019
Coastal Low with Tropical Energy ... Feels Like Winter... November. What Will This Winter Bring I Wonder...
Wow, it did it... Tropical Storm #Chantal was able to develop. No threat to land. Even with it, it remains a notably quiet season so far https://t.co/lhruDEHod9
To be honest it's barely on some of the satellites.
Hmnnn
Irony.
As nothing was happening I went out with my husband tonight to some Meetup he attends to see friends. I had a drink... some vodka, hibiscus syrup, basil, lime, agave ... a cherry and it was good; not too sweet but enough of a kick to take my mind off the hurricane season. Then we went out for sushi.... it was good sushi.... I was tired as I woke up very early and took allergy medicine figuring I'd just go to sleep and start over in the morning and then..........they announced Chantal. Earlier today I did wonder if they might upgrade 97L as it was looking good, better than ever. It was looking better than Barry but time was passing and I was falling asleep. Now I'm up, because I had to wait for the advisory package.... yup. Chantal. Next name up is Dorian.
Night everyone... Sweet Tropical Dreams.
Ps if you haven't read the earlier discussion please do as it's all valid. Oh GFS and EURO now show another system trying to form where TD3 and Invest 97L was first found with great tropical aspirations. A sneak peak. Let's see in the morning if the models didn't back off on that or begin to lock in on it. www.spaghettimodels.com top left side where he links to Tropical Tidbits.
Nite everyone... Nite Chantal. (pretty name)
Models.
Tropics today.
Tropical Wave stretched across the Caribbean.
North end.... SW end.
GOM has low chances.
More on that later.
But look at that consistency off of Africa.
Seriously though today is August 20th.
I know hard to believe.....
Today is the day the Hurricane Season really ramps up.
Speaking statistically from an academic point of view.
Dr. Bill Gray, who I adored, would ring a bell.
So let's see what's going on today in the tropics.
The rumblings of tropical formation off in the not to distant future can be heard today as models begin to consistently show formation probabilities as we dig deeper into the month of August. You know what it's like when you hear distant thunder out there somewhere above the tree line and a bit beyond the horizon and you know someone is going to get a nasty thunderstorm but you're not sure if it's going to be at your house or your cousin Sue's down the way. It's out there coming despite seeming a bit nebulous before the skies darken and the wind begins to blow.
I've always been a fan of wide loops as you can see all the players and how they interconnect and everything is always connected. Hurricanes don't exist in a perfect vacuum they form when all the ingredients are ready and in place. Steering currents are often locked in for the short term and evolve just so as things begin to change and change is inevitable.
We have our constant friendly frontal boundary draped across the SE like an old lazy well loved, loyal dog that lays by our feet as we play online. Occasionally it barks at some passing feature that caught it's attention and then goes predictably back to sleep but rarely leaves it's place next to our feet. We have the huge ongoing, ever occurring thunderstorm complex on that map up near St. Louis always racing like it's late for a date in Memphis on some Groundhog Day loop and we keep wondering will another Yellow X form over Tennessee again. There is the briefest suggestion down in the Caribbean of spin moving towards the tip of the Yucatan at the base of another wave that made it across the Atlantic but didn't develop because of Cousin SAL. And far off bottom right we have another, healthier tropical wave sliding across the water slide of the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone. Oh did I mention Invest 97L lived to spin out huge model support to tell tropical tales one more day.
Yeah that keeps happening.
10% yellow.
I like to call it... Tall Tales of the Tropical North Atlantic.
@icyclone says it his own way.
Hey he's got a real talent for creativity....
...and passion for the core of an hurricane.
A real hurricane.
Fluff doesn't excite him much.
He's in a mood.
He can hear the distant rumble coming.
The things we do while waiting for things to come to life.
And they are in different ways every day.
So let's do models for a change.
Note you can go to these two sites for good models.
There's some weird funkiness going on there but the bottom line is it does close off tropical waves finally though it doesn't hold onto them very long, but we all have to start somewhere right?
It started with this weird radioactive symbol.
See?
Okay moving on now.
There's this itsy bitsy low.
Enough for Cranky to rant long on...
Early systems are often small.
Then they grow as way bigger.
Sometimes they come off in twos.
Then they fade away and another one forms.
A real wave train begins.
While you were watching the wave train.
This sneaky low feature develops E of Florida.
And backs up into the Panhandle.
Anyone who has ever taken Amtrak's Silver Star...
....knows this happens when the train leaves the East Coast.
The reason I don't like showing models this far out with no real tropical disturbance looking rough and ready is that models change on every run. The 12Z then the 18Z then we start over and do it again and lows close off and open up the way the old pooch breathes and snores at your feet every day. It is what it is ... but.....it is a sign that things are beginning to come alive. I said that things would pop a bit in Mid August around August 15th give or take and 97L popped up and trust me with even a little bit of encouragement from Mother Nature it might have briefly gotten the name Chantal. But the real message of 97L is the same message TD3 was selling... in that we all need to watch the East Coast in the coming days.
Great loop on Tropical Tidbits if you want to watch the Gulf of Mexico in real time.
Will the energy in the Caribbean....
...hook up close in with the frontal boundary energy?
Check back tomorrow.
What about the Gulf of Mexico you ask? Let's switch modes. While the models don't show a closed Low with a name ready to be given they do show moisture tendencies and whisper possibilities. www.windy.com is a great site to play with for this set up.
Around the 22nd to the 24th there is moisture.
I can't bring it in any more than that.
I know everyone keeps waiting and talking.
My Grandma Mary used to love her Ouija Board.
No that's not my grandma but you get the idea.
We'd hold that cup and see if it moved....
No I'll stick to Tarot and Astrology ;)
Gosh I miss my Grandma Mary.
Also she had a Southern Accent.
New Orleans Voodoo sounds better that way.
Either way heavy tropical rains are coming.
So this is my Bottom Line today.
Know things will be ramping up online.
I don't need a Ouija Board to know trouble is coming.
Updated Tropics Friday Evening.. 8 PM Yellow Circle Over Florida. Watching Models and Loops... Waves That are Silent Runners and Close In Areas for Possible Development.
Late breaking as expected NHC put up a yellow X over N FL
Putting this up fast before going off for the night.
I'm off for the Jewish Sabbath til tomorrow evening.
Have a blessed, beautiful weekend!
Official bottom line from the NHC.
Please keep reading as I wrote this earlier.
In anticipation of the 8PM update.
Note written earlier around 6 PM my thoughts...
NHC still has their nothing happening sign up.
Other signs point to possible development.
But as the song goes... time will tell.
Will the NHC respond soon with a small yellow circle?
Only the NHC knows..
(adding in here... yes they did...)
So I'm going to put this out here as sometimes things change rapidly close in, however nothing is expected to form or develop, it's a lot of moisture congregating around North Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. Some models play at concentrating the moisture into stronger areas of convection but they refrain from developing a named storm. Everyone is talking, complaining and bitching about the rain in parts of Florida and for good reason; it's been a whole lot of rain.
Most of social media has showed this one...
I feel their pain but it's no name rain for now.
Kind of looks like there's some spin.
Or it wants to spin.
But it's parked there.
Note there is another area off the Carolinas.
Down in the Caribbean there's more rain.
What's a bigger story than the rain?
The shear.....
If you thought SAL was bad....
...you haven't seen the shear maps.
Red means No.
Green means Go.
There's a sliver of where there isn't much shear.
And where there is less shear in the Atlantic....
...there's SAL.
Tho the set up with SAL may be slowly waning.
Things will be changing the next week or so a bit.
But unless something spins up fast close in...
...where there's warm water and green on the shear map.
It's rain.
Lots and lots of rain.
Mike has dubbed it a blob.
He's right on some levels.
The blob may shift around a bit.
But it's a blob of rain.
As for me I keep wondering if the NHC...
...is gonna put up a yellow circle over Arkansas.
Post traumatic Stress from the Yellow Circle over Tennessee
I guess ;)
Every day that blob forms...
...the new purple blob on Planet Earth.
Hang in there.... keep reading.
If models show some support.
The NHC could put up a yellow area.
But either way it's still rain.
Keep watching.
Trust me I will be.
Til we get something official from the NHC...
... just keep watching.
It's like when you used to wait for the phone to ring.
Remember that?
Some of you do...
...some don't.
Now days we get nervous when the phone rings.
Change is the one constant in our world.
If the phone doesn't ring it's me....
(keep reading if you didn't read Friday morning)
Some great links to loops you might want to save.
Or just save my blog ;)
I'd like to be out in the eye of the storm.
Bet some one here would like to be...
...in the eye of the storm.
Or at least at the beach in a storm.
Sweet Tropical Dreams
Can show it to you in Color too!
Not the strongest Atlantic waves today.
But they keep hanging in there...
...or trying to anyway.
Indian Ocean lit up.
But our wave train should depart the station soon.
Sometimes trains are late...
...if you use Amtrak you'll know what I mean.
So that's the wide view of the tropics above.
A wave that left Africa in the MDR.
MDR = Main Development Region for newbies.
Cluster of Convection in the NE GOM
Later with the heat of the day it will fire up more.
A weak Caribbean wave moving Westbound.
Why do we watch weak Caribbean waves you ask?
@DaDaBuh has a rule.
Okay he has LOTS of rules....
But he explains this well.
They move along like silent runners.
Barely there and then hit the 50 yard line.
Often waves can flare up in the Caribbean ....
...down near the Yucatan.
Sometimes the North end of a wave flares up....
...near PR and suddenly close to Florida.
Until the Atlantic Waves begin doing their thing.
We watch close in areas for development.
When the Atlantic Waves begin to kick in.
You'll know as everyone goes crazy.
Those dotted lines in the Atlantic....
...show the Saharan Dust.
There is a wave there way South of the SAL.
But the SAL sucks moisture out like a vacuum cleaner.
Kind of like this.
And everyone watching the tropics falls asleep.....
Not easy for people who wake up and check the NHC.
When things are slow in the tropics, as they usually are this time of year, it's good to read the NHC discussion on the Atlantic Basin. They have something to say about everything and often the amount of attention they give an area of the exact words they use show what they are watching for down the road development or by contrast areas they believe are shut down due to unfavorable conditions.
That's our area close in connected to constant convection and watching for any possibility of low pressure that could spin up. This front has become a semi permanent feature kicking up convection from the Carolinas to Florida and out into the Gulf of Mexico. The models have spit out small lows off the Carolinas and some believe models are indicating that low pressure could become an issue in the Central Gulf of Mexico. I'm a big believer if anything forms in the Gulf of Mexico that remains weak it will hook right to the NE or NNE with the flow. But eventually things can change so you can't judge next week by this week, but it's been a very persistent problem. And, until cooler air dives down and shoves these fronts out to sea each front replaces the previous front and where we had a large High Pressure System parked over the SE we now have a frontal boundary that doesn't want to leave. Often.... it's something big.... from up above or down below that kicks that pattern out. Could that kicker be a tropical storm or hurricane down the road? Probably faster than an Arctic front. Mother Nature generally finds a way to get it done.
Currently here's the picture.
Frontal Boundary.
Little orange dot is the current Caribbean Wave.
Moving along West bound.
Under a layer of shear that's there.
Will something develop?
Maybe.
But the location of it developing tells the story.
There is the chance it can develop near Louisiana..
(for example)
And crawl along the coastal boundary....
Visiting all the beach cities along the way.
Weak development means everyone gets weather.
Loops to watch and ponder on as we wait for the tropics to heat up and conditions to become favorable to where something could form close in or far away.
The wider view.
Big wave rolls off of Africa.
Goes poof in the water.
Does it flare up again?
That time of year that feels as if nothing will form ever.
And then it does.
Now look close in at Florida.
Always raining somewhere.
The sun goes up....
...the sun goes down.
August Climo.
Where do storms most likely form?
As for some Hurricane History?
1999 after a fast start was slow.
Then as usual it began to get busy.
Note how the switch was flipped.
A strong high and SAL owned the Atlantic.
And then it did not.
A look back at the beginning of Floyd.
I'll be back later this weekend...
...or if something pops up.
But for now...
Enjoy the summer.
What's left of the summer.
Go to the movies.
Go to the beach (but watch the weather)
Take the boat out if the weather is somewhere else.
Go shopping.
Lord knows there's a Mall somewhere that needs ya.
Location: Miami, Raleigh, Crown Heights, Florida, United States
Weather Historian. Studied meteorology and geography at FIU. Been quoted in Wall Street Journal, Washington Post & everywhere else... Lecturer, stormchaser, writer, dancer. If it's tropical it's topical ... covering the weather & musing on life. Follow me on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/#!/BobbiStorm
