The eastern Pacific is hot and the Atlantic is thankfully not!
Whatâs going on, guys? Meteorologist Jonathan Kegges back with you for another edition of the Tropics Watch newsletter.
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In this edition, weâre going to talk aboutâŠ
- The hot Eastern Pacific
- A Garbage Day update (from the outlandish models posted at the end of May and early June
- How the Saharan Dust has impacted the Atlantic basin
đHot Eastern Pacific
The Northern Hemisphere has its first hurricane of the 2025 season. Thankfully, itâs not in our basin!
Hurricane Barbara formed earlier Monday (6/9), making it the latest the first northern hemisphere hemisphere hurricane since 1993!
A second active storm, Cosme, is also churning. All three are expected to weaken quickly. The eastern Pacific, by the way, has its own set of names.
As for the Atlantic? Crickets. Just how we like it.
Anomalous rising motion, brought to the Eastern Pacific by the Madden-Julian Oscillation, helped to kickstart their season, which began May 15.
The MJO as itâs called for short is a convective pulse of showers and storms that circles the globe near the equator every 30-60 days. When the rising motion side of this system is passing through a center area, more thunderstorms can be expected.
The opposite is true for the sinking air side of the system.
Anyway, some anomalous rising motion should enter into the Atlantic side in the coming weeks. That would be the time to watch for something. However, the signal gets weaker than it was for the Eastern Pacific, so I would not expect multiple storms.
The Euro ensembles show a subtle signal for a possible system in the Western Gulf.
It is subtle and until the EPAC quiets down, I wouldnât put too much stock in a named storm at the moment. The GFS ensembles are a little more bullish, but friends donât let friends look at the GFS this far out for this part of the basin.
IF the Atlantic doesnât crank out a named storm during its open window, we may be nice and quiet through the bulk of July. Boy, that would be nice,
đïžGarbage Day Update:
Last week, we took out the trash. A lot of YouTubers and social media hypsters were calling for a major hurricane to strike the Gulf Coast June 4 and then again on June 13. The 4th didnât happen. The 13th is not going to happen either as depicted from the Euro ensemble shown above.
To be clear, I am not calling out their forecastsâŠthis was something that was NEVER going to happen in the first place. They were posted either from a) not knowing anything about the weather and getting excited over an incorrect model run or b) knowing exactly what they were doing and are in it for the clicks.
There is a difference between a busted forecast and sharing model runs for clicks. I would never call someone or people out for a busted forecast. I will, however, continue to point out the trustworthy from the trash. No new tropical development is expected over the next seven days.
đȘSaharan Dust the talk of the town
Did you see it last week? It was pretty thick in our skies on Thursday. Some had dirty marks on their cars from the dust being brought down to the ground!
We often think of the Saharan Air Layer (SAL) as itâs called as a detriment to storm formation from its dry, hot and stable components. All of that is true. There is, however. another component that helps things out in the short term. Ocean cooling.
The dust suspended 10 to 20,000 feet in our skies helps to reflect sunlight back into space.
If itâs thick enough, it can do a lot of reflecting and cool down sea surface temperatures in the short term.
I present to you the sea surface temperature anomaly map from the last week.
Some stormy weather was involved in churning up some cooler water, but lower solar radiation from the dust being around no doubt has its hand in this anomaly change.
The blue color represents cooling over the last seven days. Now, the anomaly with respect to average is still above normal, but hey, Iâm looking for positives here!
I said last weekâs edition was long, but this one might be longer. This does prove my point, though, that even when things are quiet, there is still so much to break down. Thatâs why I love the weather.
Let me know if there is anything you want to see discussed in a future newsletter entry. My email is jkegges@wkmg.com .
Donât forget to tune into the nightly weather livestream every M-F at 10pm on the News 6 YouTube channel and ClickOrlando.com .
Catch you soon!
Jonathan
Ways to stay connected this hurricane season
You can log on and chat with me live during our live streaming weather hangout session. That is every Monday-Friday at 10 p.m. To comment be signed into YouTube and subscribe to the WKMG/Clickorlando page or click here and become an insider and comment in the live chat box!
đ±News 6 Weather App
Even if you are outside of Central Florida, download this app! This is the best hurricane app on the market, and itâs FREE. As soon as the National Hurricane Center names something, youâre going to know about. Itâs a great way to follow the season, if you like doing that. Search WKMG in your app store and make sure you find the hurricane one.
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If you love the weather, whether youâre in Central Florida or not, subscribe to JustWeather!
Clickorlando.com/hurricane is also a great resource no matter where you live.
đșNews 6+
If you live outside of Central Florida or donât have cable, first of all, thank you for finding the Tropics Watch newsletter! We have a lot of hurricane season-related content on demand here, and you can watch all of the newscasts LIVE as well. You can download that on your smart T.V. or other streaming devices.
One last thing. This is a two-way street. I/we are here for you. Any ideas? Like or hate something? Have any questions? Let me know. Shoot me an email at jkegges@wkmg.com. Find me on Facebook or X.
Weâre in this together. We have families here too. Youâre going to get the same info we give to them. Thank you for your trust. We donât take that responsibility lightly.
OK, now Iâm done.
Talk to you soon!
- Jonathan