TRACKING THE TROPICS: Old front bubbling? Models back off on formation. Let's chat!

[00:00:00]during hurricane season, which means it's time to track the tropics from >> And in Savannah, Georgia, I'm WJCL 22 Chief Meteorologist Jeremy Nelson.

[00:00:12]>> All right, so Jeremy, I guess right off the bat, let's just kind of talk about it because there there's perhaps some there's there's some interesting things happening atmospherically that are a little more like a May weather pattern than what we would typically find during the month of July.

[00:00:28]>> Yeah, at least we have something to talk about, right?

[00:00:31]>> Yeah.

[00:00:31]>> Uh so let's start with let's start with this. Just kind of the setup that we have right now. That front is up to the north. It's been bringing my area uh some rounds of showers and thunderstorms. Not everyone's getting wet, but I think the biggest thing people are happy about it it broke some very high heat that we had around here.

[00:00:47]Um so today out my window it's cloudy right now, but that front is it sag south may play a role in what we're about to talk about.

[00:00:54]>> Right, right. So that front, it's giving it it's kind of generating, throwing off these little pieces of energy, right?

[00:01:02]And that's what's been bringing showers to your area, Jeremy. That's what's been changing my weather pattern around a little bit here. We've had clouds. If you look into the panhandle, there's a new big impulse of energy firing up. And over the next few days, what's interesting is that area there, and we'll look at it just kind of on on the satellite picture now. But that area kind of dips to the south, and as it does, and this is an overly simplified graphic, but it's essentially it gives us this area in the Gulf to watch, an area of interest. Nothing significant to develop, and and I would say that this is not something that the Hurricane Center has highlighted as something to watch, but it for us is an area, again, an area of interest and nothing more.

[00:01:48]>> Yeah, it probably just a lowering of pressures. You can get lower pressure, a trough out there without being tropical in nature, but what it's going to do then is enhance some rain totals, whether it's at northeast Gulf Coast, Florida, across the southeast. But what we'll watch is at least a few models from time to time have been trying to get some sort of weak low in the northeast Gulf. Now, does it do anything? At this point it looks very unlikely.

[00:02:15]National Hurricane Center, as you mentioned, so far has nothing highlighted down there, but what it could do is start to boost some rain chances maybe late this weekend or early next week.

[00:02:25]>> Right. And so when we kind of just think about this, the overall idea is that the computer models have backed off on any kind of development with it, but that said, the development of tropical nature. The idea is still, as you had mentioned Jeremy, that pressures should lower and as those pressures lower, there's still moisture kind of bubbling up from the Gulf over to Florida, perhaps even moving up into your area. But remember when it comes to these types of patterns, consistency breeds confidence. And what we had yesterday, the GFS said nothing was going to form, the European for a couple of days said probably going to get something to form. And you knew one of them was going to be wrong. And so you're looking for the trend on who's coming to what thought process. And so last night to today, we started seeing the GFS being consistent and the European backing off. And so to that point Jeremy, the thought process is, all right, with that the probability of development is probably come down a little bit.

[00:03:28]>> Yeah, and what are some factors going against it? If you have this graphic up, maybe some dusty dry air, we can look at that.

[00:03:36]There's been all kinds of in that tan color there, the Saharan dust layer. And when you get dusty dry air, you're probably not going to have a tropical system nearby and it really suppresses tropical development. So that is um it looks like Saharan dust and >> Yep.

[00:03:54]>> uh if you end up running it out, maybe there's a little pocket that uh clears up slightly in the the northern Gulf or off the southeast coast, but uh going forward in time, there's still just a lot of this dusty dry air. So at the at minimum, the main development region, Caribbean, uh bulk of the Gulf probably uh closed for business coming up, but maybe uh all that wet weather hugging the Gulf Coast would kind of clear the air out a little bit, uh but that doesn't mean [snorts] we'll see anything end up forming in the next uh week to 10 days.

[00:04:26]>> Well, and it's it's it's difficult, right? Because there's a lot of variability here. The wind shear is there, the Saharan dust is there. You've got warm sea surface temperatures, but as we know, that is only one piece of the puzzle. So it it that's not going to be a complete all in. So when you've got a lot of things working against tropical development, and you've got a couple of things working for, you know, you kind of have to watch that squeeze play and see where it's going. So what we probably should do then is let's do this. We'll come over here. We'll come over here. Okay. And so let's just look at some of the operational models, and then we can look at the global models.

[00:05:03]Does that Does that sound good to you, Jeremy?

[00:05:04]>> Yeah, we can go through the ensembles.

[00:05:06]>> Right. Okay, so let's start off with just the raw This is going to be just like the raw GFS, okay? And uh I'm going to go fairly quickly through it because it's showing the front kind of trying to dive south right in here. That's going to be Sunday into Monday, but it doesn't show any energy over the Gulf much. One thing that's interesting to me is out east of Florida by mid next week, it kind of tries to show this little, I don't know, little wave of energy coming our direction, and then again the following week, that's the 28th to 29th. Nothing organized, but the GFS is showing that. Then we come over to the European. This is the European deterministic or just the regular European model, okay? Same kind of idea.

[00:05:49]I'm going to run it fairly quickly.

[00:05:52]Uh and you know, there's nothing of note. Now, here again, you know, this is Sunday. It's showing some form of a lowering of pressure, but you're not looking at anything significant there, Jeremy.

[00:06:04]>> Yeah, and also this isn't like the greatest of setups cuz you have a big kind of trough going through. You don't have like a high and then a low underneath it. So >> Right. Yeah, it's not ventilating itself atmospherically.

[00:06:16]>> Yeah, you'd really have to sort of thread the needle to get something going tropics-wise, but if you have any of the ensembles now, we looked at just some of the operational runs there and and we'll see what the latest and greatest is with those. They've had some of these little lows showing up and as the air goes through, you might see a couple pop in.

[00:06:33]>> Right. So, this is the GFS ensemble, not really showing anything there. All right, but let's back up. Let's head over to the European ensemble.

[00:06:43]And follow through time. There's Friday, there's Saturday. You know, there's a couple of members here. It's not like it was yesterday though. Yesterday we had a bunch of different members trying to do their thing. That's not the case today.

[00:06:57]So, I think, you know, something to look at for sure.

[00:07:00]>> How far does that go out?

[00:07:02]>> This is as far as This is as far as the 60 goes. So, that's 144 hours out. If I go back a run, that's 150 hours out.

[00:07:11]And it's kind of the same thing on the 0Z. If I go back two runs, that's the 8Z.

[00:07:15]>> All right.

[00:07:16]>> go out very far.

[00:07:17]>> wanted to see if you had anything that was like uh northeast of the Bahamas because you mentioned the GFS was trying to uh put some sort of low in there.

[00:07:26]>> Yeah.

[00:07:27]Yeah, it's There's not There's still some hints of things, but nothing nothing significant there, right? Now, that said though, let's let's re-rack this. Let's look at the Euro AI.

[00:07:39]>> That's when a little different.

[00:07:40]>> It's going to come in a little different, right? So, notice the Euro AI is is still actually kind of bonk I don't want to say bonkers, but it's definitely showing >> Compared to the others, right? Compared to the others.

[00:07:51]>> Right. It's compared to the others showing you know, showing a lot more favorability. That's a 6Z run. We go back to the 0Z, same idea. We go back to the 18Z, three model runs ago. So, the Euro AI is very consistent. If we go to the GFS, the AI GFS, it's trying to show something out there.

[00:08:10]Okay?

[00:08:10]>> double.

[00:08:11]>> Now, let's look at the Google DeepMind, okay?

[00:08:14]>> This one has gone a little bit back and forth and what you're about to show, I think I found like a couple a couple little ensemble members that wanted a low there in the Northeast Gulf, but nothing it did not look impressive.

[00:08:28]>> Right. I believe that there's like a hundred members of this model and if there are a hundred members, I see three members showing anything. So, that's a 3% member agreement.

[00:08:40]>> Can you back back that view out and then look off the Southeast coast later later time frame? You might see a couple dots, maybe.

[00:08:50]Um I think I saw a couple earlier when I was looking.

[00:08:53]>> So, there's out near like Bermuda.

[00:08:56]>> Looks like a Is there a few dots or it's hard for me to see that?

[00:09:00]>> there's a couple of dots out by Bermuda.

[00:09:02]This is Thursday, July 23rd.

[00:09:05]>> Yep. Okay.

[00:09:07]So, I think >> And one major that's down by like the Bahamas and Cuba around the 26th.

[00:09:11]>> Oh, that must be like like cousin of the GFS that snuck in there or something.

[00:09:17]>> Yeah, yeah. So, what So, what what are you getting at there and then we can discuss that then.

[00:09:21]>> Okay, so I I think what we're showing here is maybe a time frame late weekend early next week. That's with if there's anything in the northern Gulf.

[00:09:30]>> Right.

[00:09:31]>> And then maybe mid to late next week if there's something farther off the Southeast coast and at this point it really none of the ensembles if they have something running towards the coast.

[00:09:42]Um, it's more off from the Southeast coast. So, I think those are the two time time frames to watch right now, but I guess it's uh it's more active than it has been.

[00:09:54]>> Yes.

[00:09:54]>> In a very very quiet season to this point.

[00:09:57]>> Yeah, yeah, no doubt. It's it's definitely starting to wake up. Now, that said though, let's let me pop over here. Give me 2 seconds. Let's look at the Madden Julian Oscillation, right?

[00:10:07]Because that'll that'll kind of give us an idea, you know, we know when the Pacific's hot, the Atlantic's not, okay?

[00:10:14]So, just in kind of looking at things here, you know, we kind of are out of phase.

[00:10:21]We definitely go more in phase mid to late next week and then we really go Look at that. That's the 26th. We really go in phase around July 26th. So, you know, and that's more like the Caribbean, but there's a window there that we go into phase where we could, you know, could have some opportunistic uh scenario.

[00:10:41]>> Yes.

[00:10:42]Okay. So, yeah, I think uh I think as a whole here looking at ensembles, uh looking at the MJO, looking at uh some of the methods we follow, you add sort of all of those up if uh maybe in the next 3 weeks we're going to see something uh we've kind of pinpointed those uh couple spots that uh have uh an area that we'll be monitoring a little >> closer than >> uh what we have here recently. So, nothing that really jumps out at us, um but just a couple areas that I wouldn't be shocked though if uh at some point in the next week we see uh something highlighted from the National Hurricane Center.

[00:11:20]>> You know, it it just depend consistency, you know, breeds confidence, right? So, it just depends on where we end up with on the models.

[00:11:28]If they start getting and sniffing something out, then, you know, we'll we'll have to to watch that. Uh either way, next name on the list is Bertha whenever that decides it wants to do its thing. We're not obviously in a rush for that sort of thing, but uh you know, >> there you go. Now, one thing since we're since we're talking about storm names and everything, we've had one named storm so far this year. The average for today is 1.9 and last year we'd had three named storms. So, um we're a little behind it not that that matters much, but uh you know, it it is what it is I guess you could say.

[00:12:02]>> Yeah, and I'm still uh firmly in the uh camp of back half of August.

[00:12:08]>> Yeah.

[00:12:09]>> Could be one of our busier stretches of the entire season.

[00:12:11]>> I I would agree and we know that because Justin kind of looking at our long-range patterns, um the Melissa part of the pattern from last year cycles back through. So, we know that there at least is a favorability within the overall setup for something. Um but as far as you know, local impacts, the good news is you know, this year's been such a sloppy type pattern that that um you know, there's no home runs to any kind of uh impacts.

[00:12:37]>> Yes. Um and did you want me to get walk through?

[00:12:40]>> Yeah.

[00:12:41]>> Uh we were talking about this earlier.

[00:12:43]Uh we're coming up on a part of the pattern that um like I said, we look at all kinds of different things. Of course, we look at models ensembles.

[00:12:51]We're we're watching the Saharan uh dust out there which is a big variable that uh we don't really know too far in advance that that's going to occur.

[00:13:00]Obviously, we have some models that show those particulates floating around. Um but we were looking at sort of back parts of the pattern, maybe what's ahead.

[00:13:09]>> Right.

[00:13:09]>> Uh as Eric mentioned, uh one of the uh sort of uh bigger parts of the pattern, back half of August, but how does this tie into what we're talking about right now with uh maybe a past cycle?

[00:13:21]>> Right. So, all right. So, I'm just going to pop it up, Jeremy, and I'm going to let you kind of kind of take >> Do you have the surface of this?

[00:13:27]>> If that's what you want, I can dial that up sure.

[00:13:29]>> let's do that first and then we can and can go through that. So, we're going back to December the 1st.

[00:13:35]>> Okay, yep. So, that's what you got.

[00:13:37]You've got December the 1st up.

[00:13:38]>> Yep, okay.

[00:13:39]>> Oh, wait. No, that's January the 1st.

[00:13:41]>> Okay.

[00:13:41]>> Stand by.

[00:13:42]>> go December the 1st. So, what we're looking at here, we have our cycling weather pattern here and that's what we really kind of get laser focused on in October, November >> Yep.

[00:13:53]>> uh when we're starting up here looking at what may happen for the following hurricane season and then we follow it through winter and March 1st roughly around there we issue our Atlantic hurricane season forecast which again for this year was below average for our metrics for name storms, hurricanes, major hurricanes and also for uh the ACE score. Okay, so that's December the 1st.

[00:14:15]>> Yes, sir.

[00:14:16]>> Okay, so also we've talked about this.

[00:14:19]We have a very long cycle duration this year which is kind of a headache and a half but >> Oh, gosh. Yeah.

[00:14:26]>> that's something else. So, what we're looking at here, we did not get to see this part of the pattern in a true within the hurricane season.

[00:14:35]>> Right with right right right within a recycle in the season.

[00:14:38]>> up, it would have been into September.

[00:14:40]>> Correct. So, this was this was the first time that we saw it and just right off the bat we've got like this front over the peninsula of Florida and an area of low pressure out in the Gulf maybe a little trough off east of Florida.

[00:14:51]>> So, what we're getting at here is when we go through this for the next 8 days uh when we go through this part of early December, you're going to see lots of little lows, troughs, things like that.

[00:15:01]So, >> So, you want me to step forward? What do you want me to >> Yeah, just start clicking through and and and you're you're going to see several different uh lows kind of either northern Gulf, southeast coast.

[00:15:13]>> Yeah, I'll look at that. You're right.

[00:15:14]Look at that. There's another one, right?

[00:15:16]>> And then yeah, just keep going all the way through the 8th and the 8th is where right there.

[00:15:21]Where I'm like, okay, maybe we get some sort of lower pressure coming up here late week and early next week and then another one later on next week off the Southeast coast.

[00:15:32]>> so let me you want me to keep going past the 8th then?

[00:15:34]>> Uh you can go one more day, but I think it kind of all tugs out and then it and then it's gone. So >> so the 8th is definitely something there.

[00:15:41]>> But as Eric said earlier when we were studying the pattern, there was no like signature or home run that we saw within this. So it's just kind of a mass of lows.

[00:15:54]>> And because of that we weren't able to successfully discuss dates this year, you know, we kind of had to be a little bit more of a broad stroke because it is a mass of lows and nothing more than that.

[00:16:07]>> But with that said, if you look at where we did put the hot spots, they reflect areas that we thought there would probably be lows traveling during the season.

[00:16:16]>> And so far, I mean, you know, we we we I I don't think that we're we haven't had much, right? Um but but I definitely think that it's it's something to watch.

[00:16:27]>> Yes.

[00:16:27]>> It's it's it's a messy season. I think that's that's the bottom line. This is this is the bottom line.

[00:16:32]>> what we just went through here the first 8 days, now if you fast forward three cycles, that's what's coming up and that's roughly in that 72-78 uh day range that we've been >> Yeah. Yeah, very interesting. All right, do does anybody have any questions about anything at all? I It's It's It's fascinating to me. You know, when we start looking at all of this.

[00:16:50]>> And of course we did not necessarily uh we've talked about um Melissa part of the pattern and things around that quite a bit, but we did not highlight that specifically because that stayed away from the US and in turn um off to the north and east. So >> Right. Right.

[00:17:07]>> If anything does form alike that in that back half of August or even just a tropical storm, hopefully it does take that route and stays far away.

[00:17:15]>> Right. Either way though, we've got this old front. This is a very May type of the weather pattern, as opposed to a mid-July. I mean, it's kind of interesting, isn't it?

[00:17:24]>> Yes.

[00:17:24]>> Very El Niño.

[00:17:26]>> Yeah.

[00:17:28]Um and yeah, maybe if we get into another where another Tuesday coming up where there's absolutely nothing, we can talk more El Niño and kind of what's ahead and >> Right. Because that's that's something, you know, I've seen a lot of people on social media discussing and you know, the the historic El Niño and and and the references been to hurricane season, but there's a whole other thing that I think people are missing, which is what happens after hurricane season with El Niño. You and I are going to be a couple of busy boys, I think.

[00:17:56]>> I think yeah, winter into spring next year.

[00:18:00]It could it could be busy. I think we did this past Sunday, we had a tornado warning in my viewing area and it was the first we've had in I think months, like probably at least two and a half, three plus months.

[00:18:10]>> I mean, we we we've not had it's been the same for us as well, you know, so um yeah, all right. All right.

[00:18:16]>> to complain about that.

[00:18:18]>> No, but but we also know what this winter is going to probably bring, so >> Yes.

[00:18:21]>> Yeah. All right, I think that's all we've got. Um we've we've got we've got some stuff doing in the studio, so I'm going to have to run anyway.

[00:18:28]>> All right.

[00:18:29]>> All right. Hey, listen. Everybody, thank you for hanging out for Tracking the Tropics from a 67 Central Florida day. I'm meteorologist Eric Burris.

[00:18:37]>> And in Savannah, Georgia,