The disturbance that has been wandering across the Atlantic the last week continues to progress west. NHC has bumped up the formation chances to 60% as of 2am this morning, and addition now has some “magic words” in the outlook. What does it mean?
The disturbance isn’t much to look at right now. Right now it’s near that star with the “1” label on the right. Recall that NHC bulletins follow a pattern (link to advice on monitoring storms). The Tropical Weather Outlook now has the “Magic Words” – key phrases you should look for to decide if you should pay attention. In this case, today’s TWO this morning says:
What does that mean? Basically that you should check in at once or twice a day and see if the situation has changed and a threat is developing. It doesn’t mean wear out your refresh key or buy up all the toilet paper and beef jerky at the nearest quickie mart. You might want to review your hurricane plans and, as you should already be doing during hurricane season, not letting your gas tank get below 1/2 tank, etc. so if people do start to panic you won’t get caught off guard. But if you know what you would do in a storm, there’s really no need to do anything special except monitor.
The main global models are showing that as the disturbance moves towards Florida, it could enter a more favorable area and start to develop – that’s the orange blob. Note that this isn’t supposed to happen until this upcoming weekend, first near the Bahamas on Saturday, and if not then Sunday the 4th of August or Monday near Florida. Here is an image from GOES East in the 6.9 micron band.
This lets us look at the water vapor in the middle levels of the atmosphere. The area certainly has enough moisture, although the disturbance will have to navigate some lingering Saharan air. No secret it’s very wet over Florida – the deep blue blobs. You can also see the pockets of dry air – the red areas. Wind shear is also light, so it’s possible something could develop.
The two main global models are mixed. The European medium range model (ECM) has been pretty consistent the last few runs, with many ensemble members showing something spinning up in The Bahamas or off the east coast of Florida:
The GFS runs have been more split. The primary run sometimes shows something in the Gulf, sometimes not. The ensembles show some stuff forming in the Gulf, some in the same area the ECM shows, and some not.
Bottom line: nothing to get excited about just yet. Definitely worth keeping an eye on, and checking in the mornings the next few days to see if anything develops (and later in the week and weekend, if conditions remain favorable, morning and evening), but lots of things will have to come together for this to become a significant storm. Remember that the forecast at this point is for a depression or greater, so not only does it have to develop, it also has to develop in to something that is a serious threat, and we’re a long way from that.
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