Hurricane Activity update, El Niño, and Saharan Dust

NOAA released its El Niño update for the rest of the year and it looks promising. They suggest it may be back by the fall.

What is El Niño?

 This is a warming of the equatorial waters of the Pacific Ocean. It not only disrupts marine currents but atmospheric ones as well. It's like shaking a snow globe with mostly negative weather results, except it makes hurricane formation a tad more difficult. It does this by making conditions in the upper atmosphere hostile for storm growth. The winds act as a blade cutting down the cloud tops of any organizing system. This sounds good but will it arrive in time?

NOAA says, El Niño, has a 50% chance of returning by the fall and a 65% chance by winter. Unfortunately the peak of hurricane season is mid September and by winter, tropical activity is done, so it may not have too much of an impact. We'll keep monitoring.

Where's the Tropical Action now?

The Atlantic Basin is very quiet with only one area of concern in the Gulf of Mexico. The National Hurricane Center is giving it only a 10% chance for development over 5 days. Even if it doesn't develop, it could still drop heavy rain from Mexico to Texas.

All the real activity is in the Eastern Pacific where three systems have sprouted since May 15th. The first two reached category four status, with "Aletta" fading over open waters and "Bud", now only a tropical storm set to make landfall across Baja, California.  A new third system, Depression #4 E (E=Eastern Pacific) is poised to go ashore by Acapulco in the days ahead. 

Saharan Dust

We may get some of this over us during the weekend. Across the globe in Africa, huge storms over the Sahara desert whip up enormous sand storms that fling dust into the atmosphere. This dust is carried by upper winds over the Atlantic until it reaches the Antilles and South Florida.

This is both good and bad. The Saharan Dust should dry us out, bringing us hazy skies, along with hotter temps. The down side is that the dust is an irritant and may cause trouble for folks with respiratory issues. Hopefully Father's Day weekend should be on the dry side to help all the dads celebrate.

Worries are less for development of disturbance in Caribbean Sea

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) says the disturbance in the Caribbean Sea is looking rather disheveled. On Monday, they called it a broad area of low pressure, on Tuesday it was just an area of clouds and rain. Even if it doesn't develop it may still drop rain across parts of Central America, the Cayman Islands, and Western Cuba.

On the satellite picture you can barely see the state of Florida on the NW corner. There are plenty of clouds across the Western Caribbean, and that's the disturbance we are following.  It is now known as Invest 91 L. This just means it's an area NHC would like to INVEST-igate further, 90 is just a tracking number, and "L" is for the Atlantic Basin.

On Tuesday night, the chances for development over 48 hours came down from 10% to zero. The probabilities of the disturbance organizing over 5 days remains at 20%. It now appears if it develops it will do so over the Southwestern Gulf of Mexico.

South Florida is looking good right now. High pressure over the Western Atlantic should keep it away from us and in the Gulf. It may keep all the rain associated with it by Mexico and maybe Texas if it doesn't fall apart before then.

Area to watch in the Caribbean Sea

As of Monday afternoon, the National Hurricane Center (NHC), is watching a disturbance in the southwestern Caribbean Sea.

For the moment, it has very low formation chances, but it should still dump plenty of rain across parts of Central America.

The satellite imagery shows plenty of cloud cover to the southeast of the Yucatan Peninsula and south of Cuba. This is a broad area of low pressure which houses plenty of disorganized pockets of rain. It will continue moving to the west providing big downpours to the area.  

 

The interaction with land should keep this disturbance rather weak. Because of this, NHC is keeping its chances for formation low at 10% thru 48 hours. In the long run, if the disturbance survives and makes it into the Gulf, it has a slightly better chance for development, up to 20%.  This is because it will be free of land friction, the atmosphere is less hostile here, and the Gulf waters are much warmer. If it does organize it should do so in the area highlighted in yellow. Remember that is NOT a forecast cone, just where NHC thinks the disturbance may get its act together.

Most models are not showing this disturbance developing, the only one indicating some organization is the GFS model.

The big bright orange/red areas represent high pressure. Notice both the Atlantic and Pacific will have highs holding firm in 5 days.  The little green spot in the western Gulf of Mexico is a weak tropical system maybe aiming for Texas. This is still very iffy and many things can happen with this disturbance. All we can do for the moment is just monitor its progress.  I'll keep you updated.