ORLANDO, Fla. – Since Saturday evening, the Hurricane Center’s homepage has gotten busy. It only took the span of 24 hours before we ended up with one, then two and now three different areas to track and monitor.
The first of the three went on quickly to become what is now Tropical Storm Dexter.
Dexter is a fairly organized tropical storm, with some of its main thunderstorm activity focused a bit more on its eastern side as it battles some upper level wind shear associated with the same trough/front combo that helped form it in the first place. This hasn’t stopped the storm from muscling up some, with current max sustained winds at 45mph.
National Hurricane Center predicts further strengthening before it moves far into the northern latitudes of the Atlantic and over cooler waters. Wind shear is also likely to increase quickly the further north it goes.
Thankfully, Dexter is also incredibly unlikely to directly impact anyone given the steering currents it shall continue to follow on its path northeastward.
Dexter is one of MULTIPLE potential named storms we could achieve during the month of August. It’s all thanks to changes in our atmosphere triggered not only by the time of year, but also by something called the Madden Julian Oscillation, or MJO.
We’ve had a couple of passes by the MJO already this hurricane season. It helped give us a little nudge in the favorability department to produce Tropical Storm Barry weeks ago in the Bay of Campeche. We also saw some extensive moisture that didn’t produce a tropical entity but did help put an enormous dent in our drought conditions back in June.
This time, it’s a little different and I’m here to talk you through why that is.
First and foremost, we’re into the heart of the summertime. This means portions of the Earth are receiving the most sunlight they ever do during a calendar year. That’s important, since tropical features thrive off all things HOT.
Water temperatures have rebounded from the cooler than average values we observed during the first and part of the second quarter of the year.
Being at peak summer time also does things with our upper level winds. We typically see less wind shear through the tropics. That would ordinarily put a halt to anything forming, but now we’re seeing conditions continually improving over the coming weeks.
Then the MJO comes in. Higher-than-normal pressures have blanketed the Atlantic basin, and increased mid level winds which also jeopardizes any attempt at named storm development. The MJO is like your pre-workout supplement for a lifting session.
It’ll help to give the background atmosphere a pick-me-up, providing tropical waves with more moisture, lower pressures to work with and an overall boost in lift that helps build thunderstorms.
When you position the MJO over Africa, it helps even more so. You see healthier tropical waves coming off the coast. They’re a little more amped up, with more storms wrapped up in the wave as they hit open water.
Computer models suggest we’ll be FULLY underneath the favorable phases of our MJO in another few days, and possibly lasting until the end of the month. When you look at some of our forecast charts, you can clearly identify multiple tropical waves moving east to west off Africa and through the Atlantic.
All-in-all, the way I see it, if the Atlantic were to win the tropical “lottery,” there’s no saying we couldn’t squeak out three to five more named storms after Dexter before we head into September. Now remember, that’s IF we stay in a favorable alignment. That’s why I love to use the analogy, tropical lottery.
Now is the time to make sure you’ve fully got your plan together if it comes time to get ready for an approaching system.
Stick with your News 6 weather team for everything you need to know on what’s ahead and if anything tries to spin toward Central Florida.
Also, if you’ve read to the end here, feel free to send me an email if you have any questions or concerns about what’s ahead in the tropics! Happy to provide any and all details you may want.