ORLANDO, Fla. – We have a new feature making waves across the internet and other social media platforms as the tropics continue to ramp up some into the mid-sections of August.
Invest 96L continues to lose model confidence that it will eventually spin up into our next named storm, but not all hope is lost.
In fact, what happens with our upcoming system hinges a lot on what 96L decides to do.
What’s going on out there?
We are now just about at the point where our Madden Julian Oscillation is positioning the bulk of its influence over the eastern tropical Atlantic and much of the Africa continent. As a result, the tropics themselves are becoming more favorable than they’ve been all season long.
Click here if you’d like the full breakdown on what the MJO, for short, is and what it does to our weather in a hemispheric scale. Otherwise, all you need to know is it’s a nice little helper in the tropical areas of the world, increasing moisture and lift for thunderstorms to form.
When you have more lift and more moisture, you tend to see a reduction in wind shear. This typically results in a bit more tropical formation than if you were just relying on local features alone.
The MJO has eight phases, and it has been proven through observation phases 1-3 favor Atlantic action. Those are the phases we’re about to see it get stuck in.
As you’re reading this article, another tropical wave behind 96L is splashing down off the coast of Africa. Computer models are very confident this is the one that spins up and takes on our next name, Erin.
It’s looking to fall off the land and over open water in a better position to take advantage of some of the warming we’ve seen in the Atlantic since early July. Then, we all know what happens next.
What do we know so far
The latter portions of the forecast are clear but not clear at the same time. Like we have a straight road to follow, but there are patches of dense fog that could make it dicey at times.
A lot hinges on what Invest 96L does at it pulls northward into the central subtropical Atlantic. Models are dwindling in terms of developing the invest into a fully classifiable system. Majority say it spins off to do nothing besides get wrapped up in our high pressure out there.
There are some solutions that show 96L taking on named storm status, at least as a tropical storm before headed north away from anyone in the Caribbean, Bermuda and especially the U.S.
This is the first half of the forecast we can more or less lock in. While we don’t know the end fate of 96L, we’re left with two potential outcomes.
A weaker invest, which allows our Atlantic high to build back westward and push this next tropical wave toward the Lesser Antilles.
A stronger invest, which distorts the pressure up there and bullies the Atlantic high closer to Europe and northwest Africa. This means the solutions showing our next tropical wave escaping out to sea as well become a lot more confident.
That’s our first fork in the road, or patch of dense fog. While it looks unlikely our current invest gets a name, we’ll have to give it a few more days before that becomes fully clear. Then we can focus on our next feature generally pushing west, northwest.
The pattern itself, when we look at it from the big picture perspective, favors westward tracking storms and a more landfall favoring setup. However, it comes down to what smaller weather player happens to be doing on the field as our next tropical wave tries to get going.
You’ll want to keep at least one eye open for all the details every day moving forward as we provide you everything you need here at News 6.
We’ll have updates for you all every step of the way. Right now - we’re watching! That’s all we can do.
We still have some time ahead of us, so this gives us a chance to dial in what necessary information you need at home to make the right decisions.