As expected NHC started advisories on Tropical Storm Cindy. As noted yesterday, it’s of interest to fish and fish related activities, and perhaps surfers as it creates waves, but on the present forecast track and intensity it should not have significant impacts on land. Bret has passed over the Windward Islands and is already starting to decay, it should break up over the central Caribbean. Here are the respective impact swaths …
Here is a link to NHC’s excellent Key Messages regarding Tropical Storm Bret (en Español: Mensajes Claves). The “Key Messages” product should be your starting “go to” for any storm to get a quick assessment as to what is going on. You’ll note that there are no “Key Messages” for Cindy, since it isn’t expected to impact land.
As you can see, the two storms started out on similar tracks but shifting conditions are causing Cindy to veer north away from the Caribbean. In both cases, the wind shear (due in part to El Nino) is keeping these storms from taking advantage of the abnormally warm ocean temperatures and strengthening much beyond middling tropical storm conditions. Hopefully this will be a trend through the rest of the season, but there’s a long way to go yet.
As a side note, don’t read too much in to the stories about “two storms in June already!!” or “already three storms this year!” It’s really hard to compare current seasons with the past, especially for weaker storms. For example, the January subtropical event would not have been counted in past years. For another, more sensitive observing systems means small patches of higher winds are being picked up that might not have been in the past, so there does seem to be a trend towards intensities being higher in advisories. That’s not to say we aren’t seeing trends towards stronger storms, but just to beware the hype of people who just report raw stats without context.
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