Yellow X Over NC - Development Near OBX? 10 - 20% Chances Something Could Develop. Questions on Cool Water By Africa in the East Atlantic and Why You Shouldn't Really Care. Makes Great Click Bait and a Researcher's Dream But Close In Hurricanes Could Happen in 2018. Despite the Headlines Waves Keep Rolling Off of Africa. Come September We Need to Remember Climo Usually Wins.

Woke up this morning to the site of a Yellow X on the NHC 2 Day map just to the West of me. I always joke that Greensboro gets more weather than Raleigh and obviously that includes yellow 10% areas of possible development from the NHC.  Some models spin this up and spit it out into the Atlantic where it moves in Derecho manner across the open water zooming out to sea. Some models do have it following the warmth of the Gulf stream close up the coast but off the coast sucking in as much energy (available heat from warm water close in) and sliding up towards the banks of Newfoundland. The EURO is more bullish on this system than the GFS that does not see anything of consequence evolving. Remember that as it will be interesting to see which model read this set up better than the other. Well, interesting for those of you who find that interesting ;) 

So let's look at the models.

Using the 850 mb relative vorticity version here of Euro model to try and show the exact "center" of this possible tropical disturbance I'm showing three images below. Again, it is not currently tropical but it may present itself as tropical later in the forecast period. Confusing I know but it's the only real show in town so going to explain it as best as I can in a simplistic way. The orange splotch over NC is the yellow X with 10% chances over North Carolina.

It then shoots it out near OBX into the Atlantic.

Kind of like spitting out a watermelon seed...

It's on it's way the next day.

Fast moving blip.

Could it attain TD status?

Possibly.

Water there is warm.

Remember this map above for later discussion.

For our purposes today there is warm water there.

It has a very narrow window to develop.

Sustainability is a big word used often these days in other arenas of discussion, but going to use that word here today in relation to tropical development as water needs to be warm enough to sustain tropical development. Kind of that simple. It also needs low shear that will not interfere with development.  If you have a well developed low pressure area move over the warm waters off of the Carolinas where there is low shear it has a window where it could develop into a more truly tropical system. 

There is something about the way these low pressure systems over land and how they evolve as they hit the warm water that sometimes spins up a named storm. This is a perfect example of how a set up can produce a tropical system given the right circumstances. And, this is why I am more worried about the water temperatures close in to the coast on our side of the world in June and July than I am about the water temperature near Africa that is historically still cold this time of year. Again, sustainability is a factor and evolution is the process that can make a difference when it comes to Homegrown Tropical Systems. The set up is not ideal, but it is there enough to warrant the low numbers given it from the NHC; that being 10% in the next two days and 20% in the next five days. 

Perhaps the GFS feels there is too much shear there?

Currently today there is severe weather on the maps.

Watches and warnings up from NWS.

Live News feed on Twitter.

There are three points to take away from this blog today. The first is that we currently have a "Yellow X with 20%" chances on the NHC map for a possible, fast forming, fast moving system that could take on tropical characteristics. Many are asking if this could be Beryl, other's see a Tropical Low or Tropical Depression while others see nothing of significance forming or to talk about. Time will tell who is right, but Dabuh watches the surf along with the weather so anything that brings the surf on is of significance to him.

 Two the over concern with the cool water temperatures out near Africa in late June is a matter of Academic significance and scientific discovery.  It matters little how cool or hot the water in the East Atlantic is if you live in coastal towns that have a history of home grown development close in giving little warning time before landfall and making huge coastal impacts. Over the very warm waters of the GOM or Florida hot water and low shear close in can be the best set up available for rapid intensification of a developing tropical system. Watch how fast Wilma intensified just off shore of the Yucatan and one can only imagine what it would be like to have had satellite imagery of the Labor Day Hurricane that formed in the Bahamas in 1935.

When we talk about ACE it is basically the sum total of the intensity of the hurricane season as a whole. That often includes intense hurricanes that form in warm pools of water in the Eastern Atlantic early on and far away that tend to turn NW out into open waters becoming beautiful ocean spinners. They are also beautiful in that they spare the East Coast and the Islands direct hits such as last year's Hall of Fame winners Maria and Irma. There are years where ACE is high and hurricanes happen everywhere yet make landfall nowhere. Those are golden years for hurricane researchers to learn more about the various stages of development and steering conditions that impact hurricanes. However they often stay far away from land, yet oddly years with overall low ACE can present dangers close in that leave their imprint on the coastal towns for years and the list of those storms is long. So yes on one level we will (in theory) have less long tracking CV Hurricanes moving WNW slowly at 15 MPH giving us photogenic images of true Atlantic Hurricanes. On the other hand it means nothing as to what the chances are for landfalling hurricanes in Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina or the Mid Atlantic States in the same places slammed by Hurricane Sandy that came up out of the Caribbean, across Cuba and surfed her way North over the very warm Gulfstream. A look at 1985 is another excellent example of just this sort of problematic years where hurricanes made landfall often yet most formed close in and few formed near Africa. The Southwest Carib was mostly shut down as this year could be as well as shear there is high. Two systems formed out near Africa and made it across, yet many formed closer in and there was a traffic jam of landfalling hurricanes.

Ask anyone who went through Gloria....

...how memorable 1985 was.

Keep in mind Gloria formed in the heart of the season.

When water by Africa is at it's warmest.

Gloria formed September 16th.

Climo almost always wins.

It's really not about quantity but quality.

Thankfully it could lessen the danger to the Caribbean.

Cooler waters by Africa means less early hurricanes.

The Islands are rebuilding slowly.

Florida is covered with blue tarps still.

They can use a break in tropical action.

But it means little to the the SE, GOM or NE.

Look at the map below.

June, July and August are about W of 55 Degrees.

Usually, most years.

Note the comment below:

Chick knows Carolina weather.

Again ACE is an academic term and we love to throw it about online and use it as a measure for how "active" a Hurricane Season may be or how busy it was in retrospect; it also makes great headlines and click bait in quiet times such as June and July. In real time you need to worry on what may be knocking at your door after rapidly developing close in the way Andrew did after wheezing it's way across the Atlantic constantly in danger of having the NHC pull the plug only to blow up in waters closer to the coast the same way the Labor Day Hurricane did in 1935. There was NO Ace until late August in 1992 when Andrew developed, yet we spent years rebuilding in South Florida after Andrew. 

Yesterday Allan Huffman posted his thoughts on this topic of water temperatures being below normal close to Africa, yet pointing out that the cool water pool of water ends at 55 degrees West. Is the cup half full or half empty? There are two ways to look at every question and we need to not let our guard down about the 2018 Hurricane Season that will hopefully, thankfully not be as active as 2017.

Watch the discussion that followed.

If you are not on Twitter...

...you should be.

With all it's annoyances....

...Twitter is a great place for real time discussion.

Rob from www.crownweather.com is 100% correct and people need to not let their guard down because there is a current anomaly of cold water near Africa as it doesn't mean that the danger of hurricanes forming close in (especially in this particular year I'll add) do not pose a serious threat and people need to prepare properly for the 2018 Atlantic Hurricane Season. It also doesn't mean that come September we will have to remember hurricanes form in the East Atlantic the way Gloria did in 1985. I'll write on this more over the next few days. But it's true and Bastardi mentions it often that no models showed the dramatic decline of warm water in the distant Atlantic and that makes me wonder how good the models really are when it comes to long term forecasting especially with regard to this year. Often they are great, however in swing years as this one may be if the much whispered El Nino develops, but some years have contrasting signals and their own unique problems so I beg you to take this year and every year seriously and do what you do need to do to get a hurricane plan set up for how you would deal with a landfalling hurricane or very, slow moving strong Tropical Storm that may dump copious amounts of rain and slam your area with tornadoes. Let's leave the scientific terms used for evaluating a season to the academics and the researchers and prepare as if this is the year that Andrew or Gloria is going to come knocking on your door!

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/prepare/ready.php?elq=996f8a8301544a6f9a72e6ca07b89d7e

Oh and #3 .... despite cool pools of water by Africa and high levels of Saharan Dust the waves over Africa keep on coming. The last one, the newest one earned a purple splotch on the maps we watch to see where development could happen. A little smirk there yesterday on that last wave. The one behind the smirky one has quite the structure, however it's going to plop down in mighty cold water way too early to expect development just yet.

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter.

If you are wondering how I am dealing with a Yellow X over my head... I made a tropical breakfast of Avocado Toast and Mango Slices ;) A girls got to do what a girl's got to do . . . and am loving the cooler weather on the balcony listening to the excited birds singing while waiting on the rain to fall. 

Summer Solstice 2018 - Flooding in Texas As Expected from No Name System - Mid Atlantic Heat & Weather. Tropical Thoughts.

Only real discussion today is how much rain Texas actually got from a system with no name that originated in the tropics as was briefly labeled Invest 91L. I like to call it #X91L as in today's world it seems everything needs a Hashtag. How much flooding there was will be evaluated today though late yesterday it was very sketchy in some areas and even if it doesn't have a name the result is the same. I'm also curious where the rain is going down the road and it seems it's going to where all the weather has gone as of late. Graphic below from Cranky on Twitter. 

http://www.stormhamster.com/entry/e062118.htm

What is in a name?

Won't ask why Cranky chose Storm Hamster.

There are things I don't question.

Happy to have their input.

@crankywxguy

Some thoughts from Twitter

As so often happens in late June.

Texas and Tex Mex area got slammed with rain.

Shelters are open in several areas.

As far as the rest of the Tropics.

Oddly the only game in town is off of Africa.

It's a short lived area to watch.

Generally anything strong there....

...fizzles in the cool waters of June.

Still it begs us to watch.

Note the colder water is the NW of the wave.

African wave. 

More to follow.

Sometimes waves are hard to see.

Showing the SAL image below.

It's current.

The wave is the area of missing SAL.

Each wave takes a bite out of SAL.

Each new wave finds warmer water.

At some point the water warms up.

The SAL is less of a factor.

Waves spin up into systems.

Well sooner or later they do.

There has been much talk on social media about a cooler than average MDR (Main Development Region) and the possibility of El Nino coming on stronger later in the year. There is also some discussion on Kelvin Waves that help give pizzazz to tropical waves helping them develop being aligned in such as way as to help a few of the early westbound, tropical waves in a moisture starved part of the atmosphere swimming in cooler water. Time will tell. At some point the water will warm enough to support some development. The later a wave develops - if it develops - the further West it gets and the less likely it is to be a Fish Storm. The term "Fish Storm" for newbies means that they get stronger faster and tend to curve gracefully to the NW and swim out to sea like a fish. Waves that had problems developing in marginal conditions often can end up like Andrew in 1992 that didn't really develop until later, was almost deactivated and around where the Great Labor Day Hurricane spun up changed directions, tactics and intensified close in to a Category 5 Hurricane aiming for the Miami area. So understand each year and every set up in the Tropical Atlantic has it's own problems to worry on as the saying is so true in that it only takes 1 hurricane; especially a Camille or Andrew to wreck your world. This is 2018 and it is NOT 2017 and there will be less named storms, probably way less ACE and few years in history will compare to 2017 with regard to ACE and tropical misery.

I agree with Mike.

Each year stands on it's own.

Even below average years...

...produce Killer Hurricanes.

This should be an Average Year.

Mike @tropicalupdate (was he so smart to grab that Twitter Handle?) suggested last night on Twitter  that people watch the video I posted below. It's a good video. Much of the information has been out there discussed constantly on Twitter, however Twitter leaves much to be desired and it's way better to listen to Phil Klotzbach explain his thoughts than to read them in parts on Twitter. Like Phil I love Twitter as it is a fantastic source for live reports of weather events in real time that provide us with good information (and discussion) faster than we were able to receive such information previously. As always you have to weed out the nonsense of fake information but it's very relevant and it gives us a new way of devouring and sharing information/knowledge. There were meteorologists years ago who studied hurricanes by reading ship logs and piecing together pieces of information to see the whole picture of what happened and where it happened. If the ship went down in the middle of the Atlantic there was no ship log to read and radio was not invented so there were no "last radio reports" to study to piece together what happened. There was a time before we had radar and a time before we had satellite imagery and a time before we were able to share live breaking weather events in real time as they are happening as we do in Twitter today. You can follow Phil on Twitter @philklotzbach.  

I have great respect for Phil, but the only thing I want to say is that although we all look to the MDR for hurricane action and yes #ACE is highest when that part of the world has low shear and warm water with long tracking CV Hurricanes but disaster can strike and often does from hurricanes that form closer in and are more "Homegrown" sorts of trouble. So keep that in mind while speaking on the cooler water temperatures near Africa out in the MDR region of the Atlantic. To name a few Major Hurricanes that rocked our world that formed close in and the list is way longer that what is below... know that sometimes a storm that rapidly intensifies close to landfall is harder to prepare for or predict than a hurricane that has been heading WNW around a Bermuda High obviously set to make landfall in PR or Florida the way Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Irma did. And, few years will ever have as many hurricanes that could not develop without becoming Major Hurricanes. 2017 was a year to remember and study forever. I'm also adding that Phil is doing an awesome job keeping the memory and lifetime work alive that the incomparable Bill Gray began and his many students are continuing today. 

You may want to Google the following historic hurricanes to see where they in fact formed and they did not form deep in the MDR region. 

Camille

Great Labor Day Hurricane of 1935

Sandy

Katrina

Mitch

Hurricane Camille

Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Sandy

Camille technically was the remnant of a CV wave that did not form. Camille formed in the Caribbean as did Sandy. Katrina formed off the coast of Florida (hitting Miami first as a hurricane before moving into the GOM) in the same area as the 1935 Hurricane. So understand on one hand the MDR is cooler now, it will warm up, but it will not produce the number of hurricanes that we suffered through in 2017. However, storms that form close in and rapidly intensify with less lead time to prepare and evacuate are their own breed of trouble.  Sandy also slammed into Cuba before becoming the huge East Coast threat later delivering a large blow a good part of New Jersey and New York. So again remember data is interesting to study, but the bottom line is that you need to prepare no matter how much shear is there in the GOM today and how cool the water is in the MDR as things have a tendency to change after July 20th when the real part of the Hurricane Season normally begins. 

Thank you.

So those are my thoughts on the Summer Solstice as we are officially into Summer even though we have been dealing with the heat for the last several weeks. On a playful let's have fun level I bought a new eye shadow palette from Cargo that is called Havana and is filled with tropical shades and well put together with names that reflect Havana and in general the tropics. I'm in Raleigh this year for the Summer Solstice. Often in the past I was in Key West visiting friends and even once in Seattle where the day is really, really long. This year I'm here so the closest I can get to tropical vacation is playing with my make up and listening to a Jimmy Buffett song.

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter

Ps. Always be true to yourself. Whether you are an academic or a salesman be true to yourself. Whether you are a teacher or a life long student be true to yourself. Whether you are an artist who sings, dances or writes or a philosopher or brain surgeon be true to yourself. Enjoy the things you love and do what you love and share what you love with others... as long as you are trying to make the world a better place than how you found it. If you don't like the world the way it is... help make it better and if you don't like the ending of a movie..... get out there and make up your own story. 

Cuba could be in play later in the 2018 Hurricane Season as could the Mid Atlantic region. Time will tell.... I'll be here blogging and sharing it all at Hurricanehabor.blogspot.com and on Twitter @bobbistorm. 

http://hurricaneharbor.blogspot.com/2016/06/ts-danielle-forms-why-we-need-to-watch.html