All quiet in the Atlantic... Let's check out the Pacific! | Tracking the Tropics
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Why is the Atlantic basin unusually quiet this week?
Welcome to Tracking the Tropics. It's all quiet in the Atlantic, but we're weather nerds, so we're going to hop over to the Pacific where there's three monster storms right now. This is Tracking the Tropics.
Live from our hurricane headquarters with real-time analysis from some of the nation's top meteorologists, this is Tracking the Tropics, powered by Bose generators.
Welcome to this week's episode of Tracking the Tropics. And man, there's barely any rain in the Atlantic, much less any storms brewing. That big old high pressure sitting in the middle there. Welcome to our weekly episode of Tracking the Tropics from the WFLA Streaming Center. I'm meteorologist Rebecca Berry, and I'm joined by meteorologist Justin Mosley. He's our deep dive expert. We don't have a whole lot to talk about, but we are going to hop over to the Pacific pretty quickly where there's a lot more going on.
That's right. We're keeping track of that. And I want to remind everybody, this is an interactive program. So we want to welcome your questions and comments here on Tractant Tropics, Rebecca.
That's right. Okay. So the Atlantic is quiet, but let's talk about why. And then we'll hop over to the Pacific where there's much more fun going on with big storms, especially since most of them are out in the open Pacific and not expected to affect anyone. And so this is the Atlantic right now.
What are the three major Pacific storms currently being tracked?
You can see how quiet it is. We are just not looking at much activity out there. Not even really many tropical waves, but we do keep track of those tropical waves. because of course that is something that we are going to continue to make sure that there's not anything big going on and right now we've got three tropical waves one over panama one just past the islands here and one way out in the middle of nowhere and so as we take a closer look this is a big rain maker for panama and costa rica as well as up into nicaragua and it's just no rotation to it whatsoever. So this is just an open tropical wave. And this is pretty typical for them for this time of the year. And getting into the thick of their rainy season, August and September especially, this is how this area of the world is going to look for the next two months, basically.
next tropical wave doesn't have any rain with it at all with just the winds there and that little ridge backing out to the next tropical wave that's out over the open Atlantic. It just has no hope of developing. It's in an area with a lot of wind shear right now. There's also a thick plume of Saharan dust right over it. And so this is the best it can do in terms of rainfall production and as well as winds. It's just very, very quiet in the open Atlantic right now. Sea surface temperatures are about average for this time of the year in the Atlantic. But once you get into the Gulf, that's where you see those warmer sea surface temperatures. And I wanted to point something out because we talk about when a tropical system moves over the Gulf or the ocean, it does pull up some cooler waters.
And so we had Bertha, which was barely a system at all, but it still cooled the waters just a little bit where it impacted there in the mid 80s, whereas they were in the upper 80s, pretty much everywhere else in the Gulf right now. But we were seeing temperatures, sea surface temperatures there, 88, 89 degrees before Bertha rolled through. Bertha rolled through, did a little bit in terms of cooling things down, but it'll be pretty short-lived and it's pretty isolated as you can see from how hot things are in the Gulf right now. So I was talking about that wind shear and it's so high right now across the Atlantic. And it's high exactly where systems might be trying to get started. And those tropical waves, basically everywhere that those tropical waves are, we've got a swath of high shear.
And it does relax a little bit over the weekend in the open Atlantic, but down where that more significant tropical wave is getting into Central America, that's where the shear remains really high. Now, of course, wind shear is those upper level winds.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why is the Atlantic basin unusually quiet this week?
0:01–1:16
2
What are the three major Pacific storms currently being tracked?
1:16–5:40
3
How is Hurricane Genevieve expected to evolve and why won’t it affect land?
5:40–9:07
4
Will Tropical Storm Fausto bring rain or strong winds to Hawaii?
9:07–13:34
5
What makes Typhoon Dolphin a “fish storm” and how strong could it become?
13:34–17:34
6
How is the current El Niño influencing Atlantic wind shear and storm development?
17:34–22:02
7
What recent updates were made to the seasonal hurricane forecast?
22:02–24:10
8
What are the key take‑aways and what should listeners watch for next week?
24:10–24:36
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Tracking the Tropics: Hurricane Season Podcast
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Pacific explodes with activity as Atlantic stays quiet | Tracking the Tropics
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