Since my 
Erin became a hurricane on August 15, which is nine days later than the median date over the past fifty years. There's only a slight trend over that time period in earlier first hurricane dates, but rarely does one form before July 1. Note that I don't count Alex 2016 on here... that became a hurricane in January (!), but I argue that it was more of a late addition to the 2015 season than a super-early addition to the 2016 season.
The forecast for Erin has been pretty consistent in the models. They all indicate continued intensification as it tracks over increasingly warmer water (likely becoming the season's first major hurricane this weekend)... and a turn to the north in 3-4 days taking it between the U.S. east coast and Bermuda.
Elsewhere, there's a low pressure system that's been brewing over the far western Gulf of Mexico that could very briefly sneak into tropical cyclone status today, but will move inland soon. There will be an aircraft reconnaissance flight into it today and that will determine if the structure supports being classified as a tropical depression (it would be TD6), and even if the peak winds support a tropical storm classification (it would be Fernand).
Finally, this one is quite a bit off, but has growing model support for significant development in a week or so. There's a strong easterly wave still over Africa that will exit into the eastern Atlantic in a couple of days and begin its trek across the deep tropics. Lots of time to watch and wait on this one.
(by the way, I wrote a little blurb about looking at tropical waves over Africa on satellite recently... check it out on Bluesky! A 🧵 on "limb cooling" and how it relates to tracking tropical waves across Africa)
The next couple of names on this year's list are Fernand and Gabrielle.
No comments:
Post a Comment