>This is why we’re not seeing storms yet!!

If it’s not the extra fast easterly trade winds and huge amounts of Saharan dust, it’s the other prohibitor that’s ripping developing thunderstorms over the Western Atlantic, which is strong upper winds that are blowing over top of the easterlies crossing the Atlantic and into the Caribbean, yes, waters are nice and warm and to the deepest levels anywhere in the entire Atlantic basin, but throughout this season, the atmosphere has not been conducive. El Nino is one of the least likely prohibitors. Even the large trough drapped over Western Europe, bringing cooler, stormier weather into the UK is likely forcing larger quantities of Saharan dust into the tropics, can we thank the European trough for lack of Atlantic basin tropical cyclone activity? Probably not, though we could be cooler Atlantic waters than recent years and indeed the differing layered wind profile across the Atlantic which have ripped appart African waves and the dust has choked these cells also. Note the graphic courtesy of CIMSS (University of Wisconsin). An area of low pressure sitting just east of Florida is also creating a hostile upper environment to two waves, one in the Caribbean and the other that’s moving up the Eastern Seaboard as a low pressure system. The front pushing east off North American may vent convection from the strong wave off the Southeast US coast and help develop this but I am really not convinced we will see anything truely tropical from this low that will pump moisture into the Mid-Atlantic and urban Northeast. As you can see from the wind annalysis chart I am added, between the Bermuda high and the trough in the eastern US, winds funnel north in between and this low will ride the train along the tracks these winds create, keeping this offshore of the US but will bring rain and possibly gusty winds along the coast as well as large waves and rip current risk. Note the strong easterly winds blowing into the Caribbean from the Atlantic, westerlies blowing over top of these are creating a hostile environment so we won’t see anything develop in the near future there. As for thwe Gulf, strong high pressure has stopped any attempt of a tropical wave heading north through the Yucatan Channel and basically we haven’t really seen anything there in the first place since the wind shear has been too strong.

The real area to watch is the western Atlantic, off the US East Coast where the front may spark thunderstorms and the tail end of these fronts can be an area where tropical cyclones like to spin off from.. Nice warm, deep waters and a reduced shear environment is all it takes. I believe a shift in the Bermuda high westward and in turn the eastern trough shifts more over the Great Lakes, will lay the tracks more towards the East coast.

Thanks for reading.

-Mark