Up until now the focus has been across the Pacific and it’s busy 2018 season while the Atlantic has remained quiet as expected. This is typical of warm ENSO years where the tropical east and west Pacific is warm and Atlantic cool.

As you can see from the two below charts, there’s been a frenzy of storms over the far east Pacific.

This is aided significantly by warm waters west of Mexico and cool east of Mexico.

This SST profile enhances convergence, upward motion and cyclogenesis in the east Pacific.

However, with the aid of a more favourable MJO pulse and warming of the tropical Atlantic, we have a burst of activity blossoming over the Atlantic.

We’ve went from this just days ago…

https://twitter.com/GregPostel/status/1033682767685578752

to this…

https://twitter.com/JimCantore/status/1036698767918022656

This shift was seen coming by the models as they showed a kelvin wave propagating west to east…

https://twitter.com/carl_schreck/status/1032672395574824960

This more favorable MJO phase and amplification has led to the huge atmospheric kick in large-scale areas of rising and sinking air masses over Pacific and Atlantic basins.

While the atmosphere has become favorable, so too have the waters across the tropical Atlantic in the last few weeks.

We now have Tropical Storms Florence and Gordon with another feature being monitored off Africa.

Gordon poses a threat to the Gulf Coast over the upcoming Labor Day weekend.

Florence is no threat to land currently.

https://twitter.com/GregPostel/status/1036257677675048962

With Gordon, Florence and others systems expected to develop by the models in the next 1-2 weeks, the North America pattern is concerning as an upper ridge over New England means the both Atlantic and Gulf Coasts will remain vulnerable.

Tags: hurricane season 2018, mjo, tropical atlantic, tropical pacific, tropics