kevin wrote:Another one. 2024's MDR/CV season is hitting its stride at the time of the year when most seasons close down that region of the basin.
It makes sense on its face -- if the reason the MDR was so inactive in August/first 3 weeks of September (i.e. typical peak MDR season) was due to the WAM's anomalous position causing all the tropical waves to exit Africa's coast way too far to the north, then it seems logical that once the WAM inevitably moved back south, the tropical waves would start coming off into the Atlantic at their usual latitude south of Cabo Verde and that the very high SSTs/OHC would support development in line with how the MDR typically behaves during its seasonal peak. The MDR normally begins shutting down around this late-September/early-October period because the WAM shifts too far to the south for tropical waves to develop, but that isn't happening yet because everything is still so anomalously far to the north and looks to stay that way over the next several weeks.
Sure, this probably isn't the entire story and there are no doubt other factors in play here that others might be able to shed some light on, but this has been my thinking over the last month or so. We are now entering the actual "peak season" even though the climatological "peak season" already passed 3 weeks ago. This tropical wave/future AOI will be entering an environment that you would expect to see 3 weeks earlier in September, so maybe it could be useful to consider the peak MDR/CV season as fashionably late by 3 weeks but here to stay for the same amount of time as usual.
