>Tropical Storm Erika is now born and appears to be heading north of the Caribbean Is. for the time being, perhaps taking a path towards the Bahamas. This hurricane season for me is very similar to 2006 in both it’s prohibiting factors with dry air, stronger easterly trades and the recurving of systems as the trough and weaker western periphery of the Mid-Atlantic ridge out over the Atlantic is keeping most systems off the Eastern Seaboard and actually, like 2006, the UK is yet again experiencing the remnants of these tropical systems as what’s left of Danny possibly rains himself out over us the next day or so. The heart of the Tropical Atlantic is ready to shut down it’s tropical cyclone production as widespread subsidence or “sinking” is ready to suppress any African wave that tries to come again but in the western Atlantic where frontal boundaries cross out into the western Atlantic off the US may get a storm to develop as well as out over the Gulf. The in close development scenario looks to be the main concern coming into the fray as we approach the second half of the season. As Joe Bastardi points out, it’s wack a mole development we now need to watch for as the deep tropics shut down but one may break from the pack.
I DID BRING DOWN MY NUMBERS OF STORMS FOR THE SEASON TO BETWEEN 4-6 AROUND AUGUST 1. THERE HAVE BEEN 4 SYSTEMS FORM AS AS WE APPRAOCH A PERIOD OF SHUT DOWN I STRONGLY FEEL WE WON’T SEE ANYMORE THAN 6 STORMS THE REST OF THE 2009 SEASON.
We now watch as the southwest Pacific, Hawaii in the central Pacific and the eastern Pacific may light up with development between now and November as the concentration of energy potential as well as largescale upward motion drifts out of the Atlantic basin where waters really have not been all that warm “in the deep tropics”, dry air and shear has been a real problem and cross into the vast Pacific basin. ALL IN ALL, THIS YEAR HAS SEEN A DEARTH IN GLOBAL TROPICAL CYCLONE PRODUCTION, WE’RE ALREADY AT SEPT 1 AND ONLY 4 NAMED STORMS IN THE ATLANTIC? The normal hot bed for global activity – The southwest Pacific, may play catch up as largescale upward motion interacts with bath-tube waters as well as the eastern Pacific in the same area Jimena formed. That could be the second key area for development the rest of 2009.
As for here in non-tropical Scotland, it’s rained, rained and rained. Quite frankly it’s been a redicuously WET SUMMER this year, what started off as a hot, dry start and looked good in my opinion to continue into July and even the rest of the summer, ended by July 1. Basically the sun hasn’t returned since. It’s been a pattern of sunshine for a period of between 10 mins and 2 hours before more rain showers came through. Rains have been heavy, winds brisk and cold and with a trough of cold air over us for two months and a ridge over southern Europe, all the Atlantic mess (constant train of low pressure systems, some of which were originally tropical) have simply trained right over Scotland bringing abnormal to record breaking rainfall. This is indeed the SECOND STRAIGHT AUGUST OF NEAR OR RECORD RAINFALL IN SCOTLAND, has this anything to do with surrounding water temperatures? A notice a huge pool of cooler than normalw ater off Great Britain, waters have cooled from what I can see around us here in the northeast Atlantic, is this effecting our Atlantic and ringing out increased precipitation on us since the AMO is warm but likely waning in it’s 25-30 cycle.. Summers have deffinately become much wetter over recent years like winters have become so warm. Water temperatures in the North Atlantic and North Sea have been abnormally warm, evidence of the warm phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation but this year or since winter a large pool of colder-than-normal water has drifted from off the Northeast US coast to off the western coast of Britian, is this effecting our weather short term and more importantly long term? I can understand, wetter, stormier times here in Scotland when the AMO is warm, both warmer air as well as increased fuel for Atlantic depressions… But is the cooler water off Ireland a sign of long-term change or is this a short term thing?
More coming up!
Thanks for reading.
-Mark
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