ORLANDO, Fla. – This month we saw quite the active stretch begin once the Madden Julian Oscillation came across our Atlantic basin to stir up trouble. Thankfully, none of that trouble really made it into the United States.
The active period has yet to conclude either, with two other areas behind Hurricane Erin that have a quality potential of developing. This is especially the case for the disturbance right behind Erin.
Hurricane Erin has been with us for such an extended length of time as well. I don’t know about you, but I am most certainly ready for that storm to move and disappear.
But we’re still going to be tracking that beast for at least another three or four days before it’s finally pulled back into our jet stream pattern and shoved east toward Europe.
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Now approaching the Leeward Islands of the eastern Caribbean Sea is another tropical area of disturbed weather in the “code red” phase when it comes to its formation chances. The National Hurricane Center has increased odds we see another named storm to 70% over the next seven days.
I fully anticipate the two-day chances to go up continuously from here. Models are in unanimous agreement we’ll see an area of low pressure into this weekend.
The good news? Despite likely seeing Fernand hit the game board, thanks to Erin’s stubborn and slow progress it’ll be wrapped up in its wake moving almost due north once it crosses 60 degrees West Longitude. Bermuda may see some weather from it, but otherwise we won’t even realize another tropical storm has formed.
Invest 99L is a wild card, kind of like an August Hail Mary.
The system is healthy on satellite, has really pronounced storms around it and a good bit of spin. However, as conditions go downhill for the Atlantic, it doesn’t look like it’ll escape the region to go on and do more outside of provide some rain for the Lesser Antilles.
It’s down-the-road models which seem to latch on to an idea this MAY try to spin up once it’s deeper into the Caribbean or even the Gulf. Something I’ll carefully watch over the coming days, but nothing of any concern for the time being.
If you’ve stuck around, let’s get into the meaty bits regarding the title of this story.
The Climate Prediction Center just recently issued a La Niña watch for the tropical Pacific. This is actually a big deal. Especially since the first half of this year, our seasonal climate models predicted we’d be in neutral ENSO conditions or perhaps slowly creeping towards a warm El Niño near the Pacific equator.
Why is this a big deal? If you’ve tracked the tropics before, we’re familiar with the rule of thumb: “La Niña usually means busy season, El Niño usually means slower season.” While that isn’t a 100% carbon-copy forecast, it generally follows through as a realistic belief.
We also started the year off with a COOLER than average Atlantic. The last few hurricane seasons, the last few years entirely, the trending hot topic was how ABOVE average water temperatures have been.
That certainly wasn’t the case up until late June and through July.
This rebound has helped in terms of Atlantic tropical activity. But there’s such thing as a “hang over” effect all thanks to the connection the ocean and our atmosphere share. When one piece changes, it takes a little while to catch up.
Think of it like when you come in from being out in this Central Florida heat. Takes a little bit of time for your body to cool back down after sweating outdoors.
So while we won’t see any immediate flipping of the switch in terms of a busier second half of the season — with the Atlantic continuing to warm in the tropics, where it matters most, and if the Pacific does cool its jets some into a weak La Niña — we’ll naturally see a bit of a boost in the thermodynamic department.
“Thermodynamic” means where your warmest and coldest temperatures are. Tropical systems love heat, and when you focus a lot of heat in one particular area, the atmosphere responds by lifting it up. That helps create more storms, more low pressure, and potentially more development.
I have a gut feeling we’re in for an interesting second half of the season. It’s rooted in hurricane season history, the bulk of our seasonal activity is only getting started as of now and through to the backside of October.
We’ll be here for you every step of the way monitoring trends and sending out everything you need to know when you need to know.