Heading into the meat of hurricane season...

[Steve]

Several threads around the web are showing the uptick in action on the African Continent. It looks like the Cape Verde season is on the way. Several web-gurus have been predicitng favorable MJO conditions from the 2nd half of August through early September. Here are some of the other factors coming into play:

SST's in the Western Atlantic Basin:

https://128.160.23.54/products/OFA/gsscofa.gif

You may note that despite Charley's influence, the unclassified 8/16/04 pix linked above still shows very warm water off the SW Coast of Florida. Interestingly enough, water SW of Cuba has temps > 88F as well. That's pretty surprising. Perhaps Charley's forward speed minimized upwelling (though points in those hot zones are relatively shallow). The Bay of Campeche is other warm spot in the basin. 2 weeks ago, the Louisiana coastline was the hottest. The trough that has brought metro New Orleans record lows is mostly responsible for the reversal off our coast. This shows up particularly well in the anomalies:

https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/products/OTI ... nomaly.gif

The North Atlantic Oscillation appears to have been a recent prognosticator of development

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/p ... _ensm.html

If you look at the graph with the ensemble predictions, you will see that the A, B, C, D, and E storms have all spawned in the negative phase of the NAO (predicted back toward positive in the near term. We got a 5 development pulse this time. It will be intersting to see if we get a repeat. It's hard to time because it was roughly positive for the 45 days leading into the current negative phase. (Side note - it's intersting that the Haiti/D.R. storm on May 25ish happened during a negative phase.)

The SOI is another important tool to help predict amplification, ENSO and westerly influence from the Pacific. A "-" value can be a sign of amplification in the Eastern United States roughly 2 weeks following. It can also signify development in theWPAC. Notice that there are currently 3 invests (2 TCFA's and 1 "NONAME") after the sharply negative values from the 12th, 13th and 14th. Sometimes "+" or neutral values indicate a relatively zonal flow or period of trofs lifting out around strong Atlantic Ridge.

http://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/Seaso ... SOIValues/

Steve