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Welcome to Skyepony's Weather Blog.
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08/22/19 The last area of interest eventually became Chantal and is now well out in the Atlantic. Now the Bahamas is producing another. 98L is pulling together and looking to bring at least some rain to Florida this weekend.
These are self updating graphics. Refresh page for latest info.  NHC  NHC Atlantic 5-Day Graphical Tropical Weather Outlook ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Weather Prediction Center~ Seven Day Quantitative Precipitation Forecast 
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Back in May it didn't look like an active hurricane season nigh with El Nino and previous years when the Midwest and Canada had such flooding, which seems to correlate with so few Atlantic hurricanes. Sea Surface Temperatures (SST) are higher and as El Nino has faded it is time to look at the other forcing factors. An overlooked but cyclone feeding force, Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) looks out of whack with the Atlantic over all in a none cyclonic conducive saline state. It's anomalously high in much of the Atlantic & modeled to continue to be.. Boundary layers of fresh water trapped at the surface help kick off hurricanes. We usually have some flowing off South America feeding the Main Development Region (MDR). There is a little, with some flowing, but overall for the Atlantic it's average to more saline this year. It's another signal that what does form this season is more likely to do so closer to land & the runoff from the land floods that have been occurring. High salinity areas are a symptom of evaporation being more prevalent than precipitation. High density/saline water at the surface has been shown to mix much faster and cool quicker as a storm forms or crosses. Where if you get fresh/less dense/less saline trapped over dense/high salinity you get that stable boundary layer that doesn't mix well...the high temps then get fed to a storm with less up-welling, aiding Rapid Intensification (RI). The SST are above average in the Atlantic & really most of the globe. We've seen though it takes more than high SST to get an active season. The way it's modeled high SST should persist but so should high SSS for the Atlantic which shows this model indicates that much evaporation and less rain will continue to occur over much of the Atlantic this season. Running the analog ENSO years to August numbers and leaning toward moving toward La Nina gives these years and their storm numbers, Tropical Depressions-Tropical Storms-Hurricanes-Major Hurricanes: 1958 12-12-7-3 1983 7-4-3-1 1960 14-11-7-3 1992 10-7-4-1 So far 2019 has had 3-2-1-0. I'll stick with my forecast of 11-9-4-3, though wouldn't be surprised if it ends a little low overall or high for Major Hurricanes. Looking at vertical instability charts enforces the greater chances of storms forming along the East Coast, Gulf of Mexico or Caribbean.  Figure 1. GMAO S2S_2.1 Sea Surface Salinity Forecast  Figure 2. NOAA 08/09/2019 Sea Surface Salinity More research and articles about Sea Surface Salinity effects on tropical cyclone formation. Fresher ocean water can boost hurricanes AGU has an interesting write up about various studies and findings world wide on salinity and cyclones. Here is an excerpt: The impact and response of the ocean during the passage of a tropical cyclone may also be influenced by the ocean salinity stratification and barrier layer thickness (BLT). When the halocline is shallower than the thermocline, a layer is established between the density mixed layer depth (MLD) and the temperature mixed layer (ILD or Isothermal Layer Depth) which is known as the barrier layer. Several studies have reported the importance of barrier layers related to TC [Sengupta et al., 2008McPhaden et al., 2009].Wang et al . [2011] observed that the pre-existence of BLT can inhibit cyclone induced cooling in the surface and subsurface layers by vertical mixing. Pailler et al. [1999] analyzed high vertical resolution measurements of salinity and temperature to show that high SSTs in the northwest Tropical Atlantic are often associated with low sea surface salinity and thick BLT (grater than 40 m). Balaguru et al. [2012] examined the effect of BLT on TC inten-sification to show that in the presence of a thick BLT and a favorable atmosphere, tropical storms are energized. Though Sea Surface Salinity isn't the only factor or the most important, it's a historically harder weather data set to gather and an understudied one that is currently more out of balance than most years. This may be an opportunity to test how much this factor can regulate the cyclone switch & improve intensity forecasts. Krosa Close Up.. Krosa is moving Northwest and should impact Southern Japan Thursday morning. 
Invest 94L is now Tropical Depression 3 and not far off the East Coast of Florida. High Resolution Loop here. Refresh for latest images.
Using NASA's GMAO Sub-Season Project forecast for a glance at the possible weather ahead. Precipitation Anomaly Below is both the precipitation anomaly for North America and the entire globe. The rains in the Midwest and Southeast may intensify through September with a drier Winter to follow. Globally the rain chances have increased since the June run over the East Pacific as have the rains around the Philippines. Caribbean still looks drier with more moisture along the East Coast of the United States and less in the Gulf of Mexico for the next few months. Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly Sea Surface Temps overall are projected to be warm. This model is signalling neutral to La Nina conditions onset in August, pretty rapid. Warms the Atlantic ocean and continues to accentuate the areas of extreme heat offshore a bit to the east of land, around 50N and 50S. Late hurricane season the East Coast is looking vulnerable.  Atmospheric Temperature Anomaly Below is the 2 meter high Temperature anomaly. Don't like the look of this at all. That sort of heat would cause extreme melting of the Arctic with less recovery over winter. We have a chance of breaking the 2012 Arctic sea ice minimum record this year. This does reflect that trend of warmer winters. Shows a chance of a reprieve for Alaska, especially next winter. Little far out on this model to get hope up except that pattern should break at some point.  Sea Ice Forecast for September Sea ice concentration forecast overall looks grim unless you have plans for cruising or drilling oil in this once frozen area of the earth. Huge melt expected. This is the forecast for September. 
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An unpredictable one with weaker steering currents and very warm sea surface temperatures.
These images should self update when refreshed. Garden Stroll & Summer Ponies
South garden is on the rebound from a storm that felled some large banana trees into it. Sunflowers are opening. Picked some long beans. Okra is coming along. Mud is abundant. Cow shack is filled with ponies..
Barely pulled together a last look and final forecast for the 2019 Hurricane Season after chasing the heat wave and great tunes around Florida. Started with the Frontier Weather, Inc ENSO Weather Analog Calculator. With updated averages and a slightly warmer looking forecast the analog years came out as pictured below.  Really only considered the top five and 1927. The flooding in the midwest and Canada has been most comparable to this year. 1993 is in there, another flooded year for that region. Did toss the number 1 for being a bit of an outlier, year of Camile. 1969 20-18-12-5 1993 10-8-4-4 1991 12-8-4-2 1958 12-12-7-3 1994 14-9-3-0 1927 10-8-4-1 Years with higher rains and tornadoes in the Midwest tend to have less storms. The Atlantic is over due for less storms. The cyclone switch seems off now with the storms on land mode in place. Even though shear is falling Vertical Instability seems low in most areas. The Atlantic has already seen it's first Tropical Storm of the year. Looking through the other analog years, the first storm could be in May or in August. So with less confidence than some years, went with 11-9-4-3. Overall there was less method and scrutiny applied than in some years. The Midwest flooding weighted heavy this year. Looking at the Vertical Instability and Sea Surface Temperatures the areas of greatest risk looked to be the East Coast, followed by the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. Florida Tax Free Hurricane Shopping Now is the time to storm prep. Tax holiday for hurricane supplies runs from May 31st through June 6th.
NASA's GMAO monthly May forecast is out. El Nino looks to be maturing with the warm pool drifting back to the west as the East Pacific begins to cool. Overall sort of a warm neutral or weak El nino expected.  Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies look warm. Hot in the Arctic with the reprieve being in the Antarctic. Hints at another bad cyclone year for Japan and slower year for the Philippines. Carolinas and East Coast may get above average hurricanes this summer and fall.  Took a quick glance at global precipitation. East Pacific could have another active year. May see the United States dry out a little. The 2M temp maps showed a scary hot Arctic. All to be covered next blog. Grew all these purple potatoes in a 14" pot from a potato that was sprouting. The mix was pony/cow compost with a shovel of fire pit ash. That is the South Garden reclaimed in the background. Gift seedlings and seeds have moved in. The last three days of rain have been perfect for replanting this garden. 
Heavy rain and spring melt is coming together in the Mississippi and Illinois River. Sections of both rivers are flooding. The Mississippi record at Rock Island broken. More may fall as the daily severe storms rain on.
These river gauge graphic are in real time. Refresh page for latest. To see river gauges across the United Statescheck here.
There is a mid-level closed low east of the Bahamas. It's expected to bring rain to Florida by Thursday.
Embedding a few real time views. |
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