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!
Thursday, June 18, 2026
Yes There ARE Tropical Waves Swimming Hard Trying to Get Across the Atlantic ...Been Ignoring Them... So This Blog is For You. But... Today Is All About Arthur's Leftovers... June Too Soon For African Wave Train Right Now.
Note to my teenage self:
Do not fall for it! Yes it's a cute little wave, it's looks happy and alert, and still has some nice colorful convection while it looks out towards where it wants to go and thinks it can hide from the shear by the entrance of the Caribbean and just slide under the Saharan Dust. Yes, I know it's so cute and you love African Waves.
Rolling eyes........ ..........okay it has a cute li'l pink heart.
Remnants of Arthur Spawn a Confirmed Tornado in New Orleans. Tornado Warnings Up in the South All Morning. Midwest Tornado Weather Still Going Strong This Morning. NHC Gives X Arthur 10% Chances off Reformation in the Atlantic. Low Chances But A Chance. Stay Tuned. Busy Weather Day.
Our land loving Arthur is still causing trouble this morning as a Tornado Warning went up in New Orleans this morning and the NHC hoisted a yellow X over the Mississippi River with an arrow pointing to an area where Arthur may reform once back in the Atlantic. The models have suggested this and late yesterday the NHC actually mentioned it in their advisory for Arthur in the discussion. It's been on the table on social media and in discussion between weather people and officially now from the NHC. It's an opening 10% bid in the tropical version of the game Jeopardy! And, as always, we just have to watch, wait and see what evolves in reality.
I'll be honest when looking at the tilted structure of Invest 90L and what was stacked against it I felt it probably had a better had a chance as a Low off the Carolinas of getting a name then in BOC or the Gulf. But as I have said before I've seen garbage looking Invests get upgraded just before landfall in the BOC or as they struggle towards land in the Gulf. In this case, 90L preferred land over the warm, tropical waters of the Gulf go figure. The name is gone, the official floater is down but his remnants remain and any damages or God Forbid deaths attributed will be associated with the remnants of Arthur.
While the NHC has pulled the plug on Arthur, for now, or let's say put it "on pause" we may not be done with it yet. While TS Arthur lacked a cohesive center it has delivered the forecasted punch of flooding, severe weather and tornadoes. Our night of tornadoes in Indiana hours ago has evolved into our morning of tornadoes in both the South and the Midwest. But nothing is more compelling as a tornado that is doing more damage on the ground in the New Orleans general region than many Category 1 Hurricanes would ever do. Lots of ironies here, but there's time to think on that later when Arthur has moved on from this part of the Mississippi River. Weather is weather. Severe Weather is severe weather. Tornadoes happen.
As I type this there is now a tornado warning for Picayune. I've said countless times, there is more to be feared from a messy, sheared minimal Tropical Storm at times than most Category 1 Hurricanes. The word Hurricanes makes people sit up and listen; prepare and pay attention and take precautions. Hurricanes often are tightly wound with a cohesive center and move along a specific path in the Cone. A barely there Tropical Storm or remnants of splashes tornado warnings across a wide area in a patchwork pattern that really has no pattern. And, after days of torrential rain there are areas flooded with stalled out cars that were taken by surprise of the actual intensity of the weather associated with Arthur.
They may have pulled the floater...
...but the weather from X Arthur remains.
Gotta love Tropical Tidbits.....
..if you use them send them some cash love.
Takes a lot to run his incredible site.
Going wider ....
Weather popping everywhere.
Dangerous Weather
Speaking of dangerous weather...
...and the NHC yellow arrow.
Where ever X Arthur goes...
..trouble seems to follow.
In the Carolinas we are watching for rain.
We need rain.
We don't need tornadoes....
...but we definitely need rain!
Busy weather day today across the USA
Lots of pretty crayons being used here. Much not very pretty weather.
Updated 45 MPH! TS Arthur Forms! A Look Into the Heart of the Tropical Matter and the Mind of the GFS & EURO Today. .. Huge Messy, Dangerous Weather Maker
Note the pressure dropped as well.
Generally dropping pressure....
...means winds are going up.
And so NHC put out a Special Advisory.
Extended Warnings as well!
Showing cone with extended TS Warnings.
Showing the Interactive Cone as I'm a fan.
You can zoom in, move it around.
Click on your area.
It's obviously gonna be that kind of day..... ...next advisory at 5 PM
***
The horizontal blue line is TS Warnings.
Tropical Storm Force winds...
..can be expected.
Gusts higher as usual.
But again this is a rain event.
Flooding event.
Severe Weather event.
With winds of 40 MPH
Hovering around the coastline currently.
This graphic shows....
...barometric pressure is low....
Lower than everywhere else.
It's a marginal TS
Pressure is very high elsewhere.
1001 compared to 1018 in some places.
As often happens in El Nino years, early in June before a developing El Nino clamps down with steel jaws onto the Atlantic Basin tropical systems will form where they can ....where the atmopshere allows formation. Arthur is a good example of a storm forming close in from multiple factors near the coastline in an El Nino Year. In 1997 while the "Mother of All El Ninos" was in the headlines, the basin was very quiet. Danny formed near the coast in the Gulf from non tropical origin.
(from Wikipedia)
It delivered a punch and continued on across the South intact and reformed in the Atlantic. 2026 is said to be "twinning" 1997 El Nino wise, so we will have to see if Arthur can manage that unusual trick! And, Danny was a Hurricane not a Tropical Storm, but still it's an interesting scenario that some models have tried to replicate recently.
Very minimal hurricane.
Time will tell.
Please keep reading if you have not read this already.
Mike made a graphic this morning that really speaks to me, and so I am going with it and sharing my thoughts. Why do we look at the GFS and the EURO when there are so, so many others to mention? In a way they are two parts of this puzzle. They are like twins that shared a womb, but are not identical and yet they have the same gene pool. They look at the tropical mystery and come up with two possibile scenarios for the crime. We are in Prime Time for the 2026 Hurricane Season. It may not look like much, but we may not get much and this is close to land, close to populated areas and it's an important forecast. The NHC put up possible Tropical Storm strength in the discussion, and yet they have used the "regardless" word over and over to remind people reading it that regardless of getting a name this can and will deliver dangerous weather and flooding in an area where there is already flooding and that is the true meaning of misery.
Back to the Twins who are not identical, but have the same genes.
The EURO has been strange this year so far. It's as if it's trying to show the GFS two can play at this game. Perhaps there's so much pressure with the new AI models breathing down it's back, but it's been acting like the GFS. It takes out the pink crayon coloring in the bottom half of Mississippi that dips it's big toe into the beautiful azure waters of the Gulf. On either side from SW to NE there are dabs of pink painted in to make a more balanced forecast. Suddenly the NHC aka Charlie Brown approaches the football and isn't sure if this is Lucy or Patty as it feels like a trick. And, yet it IS the EURO and for a long time it has been King.
Next we have the ever popular GFS for those of us who like to use Xray Vision to look way down the tropical road. The GFS is the Queen of the Pink Crayon. (sounds like a song title, but I digress) The GFS draws a beautiful heart over the water near where the Sabine River meets the Gulf. The GFS rarely wants to hit Houston as much as New Orleans ...it definitely has a thing for Louisiana. It splashes fuchsia across Alabama just to show it's individualistic streak and includes the Florida Panhandle into the dangerous action where tornadoes are very likely to form and move their way inland across the coastal cities as they so often do.
If I was a Mathematician and used my only my left brain I'd cut the difference, average it out and say the beautiful area in Mississippi is going to get slammed with weather as it usually does. Chasers race to Gulfport and Biloxi and those who know... know Hurricane House in Bay Saint Louis and wonder if Mother Nature is playing a trick on Josh. I'll give you weather my friend... but haha not a Hurricane, well not this time. Li'l mean and cunning but that would be kind of ironic. I mean how often does Mobile get hit by an eye? And, well no there is no eye so maybe this time? And, as always no matter where the center of a messy, early tropical system is in this part of the Gulf warnings go up for strong cells that produce tornadoes along the coast of the Florida Panhandle.
I have two parts of me, the right brain and the left brain and they are always debating. But what I really need is an EYE to be sure, or at least a cohesive, coherent center. But this is early June in an El Nino Year and this is probably the best we are going to get for a while. And the truth is .... REGARDLESS....this PTC One ...Wannabe Arthur is a huge weather maker. And, that is why we are all here. Yes, some of us like colorful crayons, but seriously we are here because we love, we study, we follow and chase weather in one way or the other. And, areas from Houston to the Florida Panhandle is where our attention is focused. Personally, I love New Iberia ...but that's me not PTC ONE... just saying.
Update 11 PM... PTC One Forecast By NHC to Be TS Arthur ... Cone...Discussion and Thoughts on Track & Deadly Dangers ... Flooding & Tornado Dangers High. It's Been Raining along the Coast there for Day Ups the Ante for Serious Flooding.
PTC One is forecast to ride the coastline.
Sort of paralleling it....
...any variation in degrees can mean a lot.
When storms parralel the coastline just offshore it makes it harder to make an exact forecast. The basics are there in place, but degrees matter. The devil really IS in the details. When a storm does this off the SW Coast of Florida you can get a Charley sort of scenario when it suddenly hooks in and makes Landfall. This is NOT Charley. It's just an expample and happens in Florida and the Carolinas and sometimes Texas. Weak steering currents or a weak center and often shear there. Early in the Season and late in the Season.
There are the hardest types of storms to forecast in ways and yet some ways the easiest. The best of times and the worst of times. But until it really forms we don't know for sure we are merely making educated guesses based on modeling and satellite imagery and tomorrow there will be Recon. And the NHC is very good at this... I might even say damn good at this. But again a storm riding the coastline... is not easy to nail down exactly. The NHC still has it at TS status but they pushed back the forecast a bit.
There's Earthnull....
...there's what might be the center.
Still has ways to go...
There's a scenario for a fast movement and one for a slow movement. I'm just going to watch tonight as I did today and probably tomorrow. Okay, definitely tomorrow. I was going to update this afternoon, but there was really nothing new to say. It's a watch and wait set up. It's tedious and it's compelling. Local governments in the path have time to get plans into action ... in case....worse case scenario happens.
Signing off now............. will see what we see in the morning.
It's all about perspective. If you are nowhere near this storm you are totally not interested. If you are a student of tropical meteorology, a researcher, tracker or storm chaser you are interested. There's lowering pressures at the surface, and yes they are still high but they are way lower than other areas.
This is basically a "tropical disturbance" currently... if pressures keep falling, if it gets out over the water, if the models verify that they are using we will have something more cohesive tomorrow.
Will see tomorrow. We are currently at Red Alert level. That's a personal joke for me, someone gets it. Makes me laugh. It's good to laugh. Eventually it should move over water. Only time will tell.
Sweetest Tropical Dreams.
If you didn't read, please keep reading.
My F key has a problem.
It's erratic. Off and on.
I may have to put this laptop down...
... or fix it or get a new one.
Time will tell :)
****
Details above.
PTC One
Official Cone.
Going to preface all this with the reminder that this could become a Tropical Depression or even become TS Arthur, though mostly we are still in the realm of potential vs actuality. Either way, the impacts will be the same and those being torrential rain leading to dangerous flooding issues in some places, high winds and the danger of severe weather. When we say dangerous I mean they could turn deadly. Hopefully not, but the area geographically it is traversing are filled with bayous, swamps and dangers not apparent to newbies or tourists. It's hard to explain how in this neck of the world flooding can happen fast and put someone who is unaware of that into life threatening dangers. Even for locals, dangers occur and accidents happen. I'd say this is definitely "tropical" in that it's origin is one part remnants of Cristina from the EPAC along with other ingredients and it is in the tropics and it is behaving in a tropical way bu it has not developed a real, solid center. Should and when this occurs it will be TD1 or TS Arthur. Note that the advisory discussion below shows it attaining tropical storm starus in 24 hours. This is the perfect example of why we have the Potential Cyclone category as storms often form close in along the coastline here and can intensify fast and the normal time parameters do not apply here vs a long tracking tropical wave with potential far out in the distant Atlantic.
Updated 5 PM - No Name Storm Now Invest 90L - 50% in 7 Day & 40% in 2 Day - Flooding a Big Concern. Carolina Hurricanes Win Big in an El Nino Year. Something to Think On?
Invest 90L
We now have Spaghetti Models!
Starting here with the orange X that marks the spot that the NHC is using as their starting point. The models need a place to begin, and that X is basically it. There's a 50% chance in the 7 day. Models are coming out, planes are scheduled to go in on Wednesday and we will see what we will see. Regardless of a name, this is a huge flooding scenario and could be deadly, destructive and disastrous even as a No Name Storm or Invest or even as Tropical Depression. Texas has been to this rodeo before and they don't laugh off this scenario just because it's not a hurricane.
That's a wide area of concern....
...possible formation zone.
This will impact many with or without a name.
Due to the curvature of the Texas Coast....
...this could briefly get out over water.
Before moving across the South..
Carolinas would love some rain ....
drought has killed plants, crops & streams be evaporating
You can see there's a spin there.
Looking at Dvorak since it's an Invest.
Trying to find the heart of the matter....
...do Invests have a heart?
An early look at what is under the hood.
Especially as this is a rain bomb in ways.
Let's look at the Water Vapor Loop.
You can see clearly it's got something going on.
It definitely got our attention!
A stalled out front...
..will funnel the moisture as you can see above.
From Zoom Earth you can see the purple dot.
Invest 90L You can see rain is already falling.
IF this develops.
If it develops a center ....
It will deliver rain to areas already swamped.
Well literally as there are swampy areas in play.
Bayous in play amp up the flooding.
As for models ........there is model for every possible track you can imagine. The EURO has been bullish. AI models go both ways, some stronger and some less strong. Already there is a model that sees a Hurricane. I would pull that back a bit, but let's say we could get Tropical Storm Arthur. We could get a TD. But the big problem is we get flooding across a wide area where it's currently raining, before torrential tropical rain arrives and lingers.
EURO says it gets out over the water.
Currently EURO says that.
It's been fairly consistent tho...
For now know it's an Invest.
For now know NHC is on top of it.
NWS is on top of it.
Make sure people in that area...
..are also on top of it!
I'll update in the morning...
If you didn't read already, keep reading.
***8 AM Monday ***
Just to get this a li'l out of my system.
The Carolina WON...
...the Stanley Cup!
in an El Nino Year!
So.... wouldn't count Canes out.
Sports wise & weather wise
Gotta love the Hurricane Flag there :)
20% in the 2 day.
30% now in the 7 day.
Could emerge over water....
...IF it does.... it'll get a name.
If it doesn't can still get fame.
This region is used to No Name Storms.
Add in cities built in bayous....
...tend to flood badly.
Places like Houston...
just to name one.
The truth is this week's weather is not about a hurricane in the Atlantic or even a Tropical Storm, but tropical, torrential rains tracking over the same area stuck between a stalled front and a huge High Pressure that keeps the rain stuck over parts of the Deep South. I typed "stuck" twice on purpose. Can Carolina get in on this rainfall? Time will tell it's a very strong High Pressure. And, in Mississippi and other nearby areas it's already raining. So you get rain on top of rain on top of more rain. And, often sadly, these set ups tend to overproduce!
This is the rainfall signature.
The footprint of where flooding rains can happen.
These two posts tell the tale.
Josh is already getting sexy tropical rain.
Anyone who has lived in Key West...
...knows this sound.
"pounding rain" on a tin roof at night.
Wild sound really.
Leaves you with one big smile!
Next look at that High.
Well the Highs...
The 4 Highs....
....making up a blocking high pressure.
And the 3 Ls
You can see where the front is...
...you can see where the high pressure is below..
Just to be clear showing it here.
Saharan Dust and the HUGE HIGH
everything is dry.
So dry that Miami has a HEAT advisory.
Not the basketball kind.
My brother sent me an emergency alert...
..warning of HEAT Advisory in Miami.
I told him: "thank you for participating"
It has to be really bad....
..for Miami to put up a warning.
As for the ITCZ....
it is so suppressed!!
Compressed.
African waves may....
... get into the EPAC
Westbound and down...
And that's the concerns on weather today and tomorrow and most of this week. Can Arthur get named from this mess of rain? Only if it develops a low pressure areas and currently it's murky and hard to find one but the NHC is doing their job. The NWS is doing it's job. Everyone should pay close attention to Heat Alerts and Flood Warnings of all kinds.
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
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