Activity Trying To Percolate In The Atlantic

Good evening everyone. Well, the past couple days, I’ve been watching like everyone else the tropical disturbance trying to take shape off of the Southeast coast. The disturbance formed along an old frontal boundary that had been stationary across the Bahamas and Southern Florida. Sometimes, you can get a tropical depression or storm to emerge from along an old stationary front.

Looking at the 5:30 PM Tropical Weather Outlook from the National Hurricane Center, the shower and thunderstorm activity associated with this new disturbance continues to lack in abundance despite the fact that there is a broad area of circulation. However, there are indications that upper level wind patterns are gradually becoming more favorable, and we could have a depression later in the week. Air Force Reconnaissance Aircraft is scheduled to fly into the area sometime on Wednesday if necessary.

Meanwhile, there is another area of disturbed weather in the Gulf of Mexico as a large cluster of showers and thunderstorms fired up during the day. According to the latest report from the Weather Channel’s Hurricane Central, the thunderstorm activity has waned during the evening hours. Usually that isn’t the case with most tropical systems, especially well developed ones. However, if the thunderstorms can persist, and build up more around the center of circulation, we could have another tropical depression.

As far as the vigorous tropical wave that came off the African coast over the last 24 hours, it has completely fizzled in the not yet warm enough waters of the Eastern Atlantic. Looking at the satellite imagery last night, it appeared that this disturbance was going to be a tropical depression or storm within time. It was probably the most impressive wave to leave West Africa so far this season. However, by the afternoon, it was apparent that the thunderstorm action with this disturbance had diminished and the wave had dissipated. Over in the Eastern Pacific, we have our ninth depression of the year some 700 miles to the South-Southwest of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Finally, the Western Pacific continues to be active with a tropical storm and a tropical depression. Southern Japan is awaiting the arrival of Tropical Storm Wukong, which has maximum sustained winds of 50 mph while another tropical system, Sonamu, has weakened to depression status. Although the Atlantic has been relatively quiet compared to the record breaking 2005 season, there has been plenty to talk about worldwide with respect to the tropics.

2 thoughts on “Activity Trying To Percolate In The Atlantic

  1. […] And despite being a bit behind schedule, we now have a very vigorous tropical wave moving off the African coast, and moving westward toward the Cape Verde Islands. Last week, there was a similar wave in the Eastern Atlantic, but it fizzled out quickly after hitting the cooler waters there. This impressive wave, which had been more impressive than the one last week (and that was the best wave of the season to that point!) has now become a tropical depression, only the fourth of the 2006 season. Winds are presently sustained at 35 mph while pressure has dropped to 1007 mb as the tropical system heads to the West-Northwest at 12 mph, or about 250 miles Southeast of the Southernmost island in the remote island chain. […]

  2. […] This latest round of activity throughout the Pacific continues to show that conditions appear to be favoring an emegence of an El Nino. The Atlantic has had very hostile upper level dynamics while the Eastern Pacific has been busy with storms, hurricanes, and typhoons. The Western Pacific has been busy as well with eight storms alone striking mainland China including the worst typhoon to strike there in fifty years. Will this trend continue? We’ll have to see. Despite the fact that the atmosphere has not been kind to storms in the Atlantic, the region has shown signs of awakening in the past few weeks. […]

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