Finally it would appear the African wave train is becoming more pronounced as the Azores high (eastern part of the mid-Atlantic) is weakening and easterly trades are weaken, thus more upward motion! Notice the plume of Saharan dust is further north and west where ridging and large-scale sinking is more prevalent. There’s a lot more moister air now in the ITCZ zone from Africa out into the E Atlantic. Will be interesting to see whether heights will lower and African dust will become lesser over the western tropical Atlantic in the upcoming 1-2 weeks.

NHC keeping a particular eye on a large, robust wave which has came off Africa in recent days.

ECMWF surface shows system reaching Leeward Is.

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A ‘warm-up’ is coming! However, the question is, do we see 90 in places that have yet to see 90? There are places stretching from as far west as Iowa (Burlington) and as far east as Connecticut which have failed to reach 90 so far this summer. The warmth that looks set to push NNE through the Midwest and East doesn’t look particularly impressive. ECMWF 500mb height anomalies. Current

120 hrs

144 hrs

168 hrs

192 hrs  Here’s the 7-day mean 500mb heights through the next 16 days off the GFS ensemble.

CFSv2 temps do have warmer than normal but no MAJOR heat but what’s interesting is that Sep does look warmer and may be a bit of a flip in the long term cool pattern that’s plagued or blessed the Plains on east. Depends on how you look at it.  Millions will have saved a small fortunate on AC bills this year but this comes after a heavy winter and probably we’ll see bills climb as we head into winter 2014-15. [/s2If][s2If current_user_cannot(access_s2member_level1)][magicactionbox id=”18716″][/s2If]