How quiet could the tropics be in August? | Tracking the Tropics
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Why is the tropical Atlantic unusually quiet at the start of August?
It's August, but it is unusually quiet in the tropics for August. We're taking a deep dive on why that is and what we can expect on this week's episode of 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, welcome. Another week of tracking the tropics with nothing to track. If you were with us last week, we had nothing to track in the Atlantic, so we hopped over and tracked some storms in the Pacific. But this week, there's not even anything going on in the Pacific. Welcome to the WFLA Streaming Center here in Tampa, Florida. I'm joined by fellow meteorologist Justin Mosley and also our guest meteorologist Brandon Lashbrook from our sister station in Roanoke, Virginia. Thanks so much for joining us, Brandon. You are a Tampa native.
I grew up in Safety Harbor, Florida.
What tropical features and waves are currently visible and why aren’t they developing?
Loved it there.
All right. Well, once again, thank you so much for joining us. I'm going to go ahead and kick it off with a discussion of what we might can expect because it is August. And that's typically when we start to see things kicking up and getting a little more exciting out there. But so far, no signs of life in the tropics despite the mud.
We've got some storms circulating around that high pressure, but there is very little energy with that. And so what we're seeing is, once again, an incredibly quiet Atlantic. Even the Caribbean, where we normally start to see a little bit by the end of July there and beginning of August, also still got that zonal flow, that shear that's keeping things quiet. These are the tropical waves we are tracking, and notice how dry they are. There's not even thunderstorms with some of them, so much less any rotation. So we've got one kind of halfway across the Atlantic, one moving past the ABC Islands right here, and then one a little bit closer to Central America, which is very typical for this time of the year.
The rainy season in Panama, the rainy season in Costa Rica and Guatemala, where basically a tropical wave sits over Central America for August and most of September. It starts to break a little in October, and they finally get back to their more beautiful weather in November and December and January across Central America there. But no rotation with those thunderstorms. That is the wettest tropical wave that we have out there to track right now. But once again, that is not saying much because the other two are just really pathetic looking if you were looking for any type of development. There's barely even clouds associated with this tropical wave. And we've got some showers and thunderstorms out ahead and behind this one.
But once again, nothing exciting to watch whatsoever. And this is about the time of the year that we would start watching storms, thunderstorms rolling off the coastline of Africa there for any signs that they would start to develop or start to rotate. But unfortunately for tropical development and fortunately for us, the wind shear is just so incredibly high right now and we've got a lot of dry air over the open Atlantic that it's really difficult for those to get going. Typically in August, this is when we start to see development right across the middle of the Atlantic, just like we were talking about. Thunderstorms rolling off the coastline of Africa, percolating over that warm water. If they don't have shear, they start some rotation and development.
And this is the prime development region for a typical August. Now, what's not typical is how strong El Nino is this year. And so El Nino is driving those high level wind shears right across the middle of the open Atlantic. So where we would typically see the most likely areas of development in August, we have the highest levels of wind shear. And so what that means is this August, we should look outside the main development regions where the shear is a little lower for the potential for some formation or development. If you remember our previous El Nino year, just a couple years ago, we had a lot of open development a little bit further north than our typical formation zones.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
Why is the tropical Atlantic unusually quiet at the start of August?
0:02–0:57
2
What tropical features and waves are currently visible and why aren’t they developing?
0:57–4:23
3
How is El Niño influencing wind shear and hurricane potential this August?
4:23–6:51
4
Could storms develop outside the main development region during a strong El Niño?
6:51–12:56
5
How are recent sea surface temperature changes affecting Gulf development chances?
12:56–19:02
6
What role is Saharan dust playing in suppressing tropical activity now?
19:02–26:15
7
What can we learn from a Hurricane Hunter flight into a major storm?
26:15–26:32
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from Tracking the Tropics: Hurricane Season Podcast
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