The Eyewall

Good morning. Eric here. Before we jump into the forecast I want to provide a couple of programming notes. First of all, I’ll be filling in for Matt most of the time on Wednesdays, so you can look forward to this (or skip hump days, accordingly) for the rest of the season.

Additionally, be sure and check back on The Eyewall later this morning (9:30 am CT or 14:30 UTC) for an in-depth post by Matt about hurricane activity and the Gulf of Mexico. We’ve seen a spate of major storms in the last six years, particularly with rapidly intensifying and extremely damaging hurricanes. Matt dives into the latest research and speaks with hurricane scientists about whether this is really a trend, and what it means for coastal residents. It’s an excellent, informative long read.

One sentence summary

Conditions continue to look fairly benign across the Atlantic, but in about a week we may have an item or two to watch.

Happening now

All remains quiet this morning with no areas highlighted in the Atlantic basin by the National Hurricane Center over the next seven days.

The medium range (days 6-10): Perking up a little bit

The global models are continuing to drop hints about the potential development of a tropical wave about one week from now in the Atlantic Ocean, to the east of the Windward Islands. There is now some support for this in both the European and Canadian global models, but neither really develop it significantly. Wind shear will likely play a role in hampering its development.

These tropical waves will become more potent later in the season, when they spin off of Africa more frequently, and the combination of lower wind shear and peaking sea surface temperatures aid their development. For this wave, since it is June, we just really don’t have any significant concerns. We’re only mentioning it now because there is just not a whole lot else to talk about.

The other area to watch is the southern Caribbean Sea, where low pressure may congeal into something approaching a tropical system. This could happen during the period of about a week from now. This may eventually push some storminess northward toward Cuba or Florida, but at this time I don’t anticipate anything too organized. We will, of course, keep an eye on all of this and more, updating you as things change.

Fantasyland (beyond day 10): A little noisy

Overall, this is just an extension of the medium-range outlook. The GFS model, for a time, gets pretty excited about the system in the southern Caribbean Sea, but since this is a distinct outlier at this time—and entirely consistent with that model’s predilection to take even a whiff of low pressure and go hog wild—it is not something worth getting worked up about.

Matt will be back with you on Thursday!

As promised, let’s take a look at the dust situation in the Atlantic today.

Michael Lowry, in his excellent tropical weather blog last week noted that dust has been running very, very low so far this season in the key main development region (MDR) of the Atlantic basin. Indeed that’s the case. While low dust does not mean no dust, as seen on the Saharan air layer color-infused satellite image from the University of Wisconsin below, it certainly has been a bit lackluster thus far.

Note the presence of extremely dry air in the Gulf of Mexico. That isn’t dust; it’s just that dry as high pressure begins flexing over Texas.

Brown on the image above implies dry air, while green implies moist air. More brown than green in key areas we care about means that dust or not, the atmosphere is not terribly conducive for development.

Over the next 7 to 10 days, we will likely see pockets of dust begin to migrate further across the basin, tinging the skies in the Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico, and Hispaniola with dust by later this week and again next week.

This also keeps much of the Atlantic basin quiet, as it should be this time of year. We’ll keep up on dust as it peaks in the coming weeks before declining in concert with the ramp up in hurricane season historically.

One sentence summary

Conditions continue to look relatively benign across the Atlantic, but a couple items pique our interest in the medium and longer range.

Happening now

All remains quiet this morning with no areas highlighted in either the Atlantic or Pacific basins by the National Hurricane Center over the next couple days.

The medium range (days 6-10): Mostly fine but not quiet

No real concerns are seen out through the weekend and into early next week. But there are a couple things to watch. First, the NHC did add an area to watch in the Pacific over the next 7 days, the first sign of change since the very beginning of the month.

Meanwhile, in the Atlantic, there are some subtle model hints that low pressure may try to slowly develop just south of the main area of dust and dry air in the Atlantic just east of the Windward Islands. The map below shows the individual ensemble members of the European model on day 8 (next Tuesday), and about 20 percent of the 51 members show development, a minority to be sure but interesting nonetheless.

Remember, one off model runs like the GFS operational we’ve been discussing in fantasyland since last week are called deterministic models. Ensembles are when we tweak the initialization of each model run a bit and run it 30 to 50 different times. This creates wider goal posts, which is what we want as meteorologists. We need to see a realistic buffet of options when forecasting 5 to 10 days out, not a singular deterministic outcome.

We have seen a barrage of waves in the Atlantic so far this season, and although nothing has organized, they may be trying to prime the pump a bit for something. I don’t believe any system that forms next week would become a serious issue, but I would not be floored to see something out there. We’ll look closer at that tomorrow and Thursday.

Fantasyland (beyond day 10): A little noisy

We continue to see plenty of signs of some noise in the Caribbean or southwest Gulf in the fantasyland timeframe. But we also continue to see no reason to believe anything organized will come of it at this point. The GFS continues to periodically try to develop spurious storms, but we will continue to ignore it completely.

We will join you again tomorrow!

We hope everyone had a good weekend. This week at The Eyewall, we’ll keep tabs on next week, when the pattern is expected to get at least a little more favorable for some type of noise. Maybe. We will also check in on Saharan dust tomorrow. This Wednesday, look for the first significant piece from us on the spate of high-end hurricanes in recent years in the Gulf of Mexico. We talked to experts, read research, and broke down what we think is important for you to know if you live anywhere along the Gulf Coast. We hope you’ll check it out.

One-sentence summary

The Atlantic looks quiet for another week, with minimal development chances and a whole lot of wind shear dominating the picture.

Happening now: Very little!

Let’s take a look at the satellite image of the Atlantic this morning.

This week is starting off quiet. The Gulf and Caribbean are void of much in the way of thunderstorm activity, and there’s nothing in the Atlantic of note. Saharan dust and dry air are mostly in control right now, with a dollop of wind shear. You can expect this sort of satellite image with those conditions.

The medium range (days 6-10): Nothing expected

As of right now, we don’t expect any development in the medium range period. Certainly not through the weekend. I will say that there are a couple reasons to think that perhaps early next week we could start seeing more thunderstorm activity in either the southwest Caribbean or on the Pacific side of Central America. None of those areas would feature a candidate for development at this point, however. Just a little more to talk about.

Fantasyland (beyond day 10): The GFS won’t give it up

The GFS continues to advertise a spurious tropical system in the Caribbean and/or Gulf. I sort of debuted our TikTok account this weekend with an explanation on that. We’ll work on a way to cross-post videos like this elsewhere for those that prefer to avoid TikTok. Whatever the case, I also wrote about this Friday and quite frankly not much has changed. I would argue that the overall pattern looks a little more interesting next week, but exactly what we can generate from it, if anything at all, remains uncertain. I would say that if I had to bet, the eastern Pacific basin would be much more likely to see something before the Caribbean does beyond day 10. But we’ll see. More tomorrow!