With waters abnormally warm by up to 5C off the US Gulf and Southeast coast, not only is this making for the warmest March and April on record on land, this could also favour early season development.

[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)]

The warm water itself won’t lead to tropical cyclone development but the pattern we’re entering could well. This wouldn’t be untypical of El Nino years. Remember, what hurricanes do, they take heat out of the tropics and redistribute into the temperate regions. When’s there’s an excess build-up of heat from water to atmosphere, there is sometimes the need for the atmosphere to blow off a little steam. That may come early (May) or may not till later down the road.

GFS ensemble 7-day mean 500mb height anomalies shows positive over negative and the negative is right over that anomalous warm water. Lower heights over warm water makes for a great environment for upward motion.

With ridging spreading east across the Lower 48 and you’ve got negative heights over the Caribbean, Gulf and off the SE coast, so the air is encouraged to rise. Another factor is the southward jog of the sub-tropical jet which focuses low pressure and storm activity.

The ECMWF is definitely trying to stiff out something under the ridge.

While I don’t think the OVERALL, broad scale set is conducive this season for a big Atlantic season, it’s situations where if the US pattern becomes favourable, we watch sit back and pay attention, especially given how warm waters are in close to the coast.

In today’s video, I’ve touched briefly on the above but will look into this potential in greater detail in tomorrow’s video.

As for the Lower 48, well the pattern is becoming more active and therefore expect the severe weather season to ramp up with bigger flooding rain events from Texas northward. I’ve pointed out in the video.

Check out the amount of rain the QPF is printing out over the next 10 days over the Plains.

[/s2If][s2If current_user_cannot(access_s2member_level1)][magicactionbox id=”18716″][/s2If]

Tags: el nino, ENSO, hurricanes, tropics