csnavywx

Nino tends to suppress more over the Caribbean and GOM than it does out in the MDR or particularly the subtropical Atlantic. It's just that there's been a big expansion of the 26C isotherm both spatially and at depth over the last 40y (and especially the last few years) in these areas where a Nino won't really help stop development. Obviously if you don't have a mod-strong Nino in place helping shear part of the basin, then this leaves open more area over time to higher SSTs and OHC. ENSO isn't the only game in town though, and changes to static stability via SAL intrusions and the West African Monsoon are important too.

Doh! Poe's Law strikes again!

So, if you were to hand-draw a CONUS surface temperature chart with isotherms, you're telling me that the temperature would go *up* the more stations I have? News to me.

Gonna be wild if we end up breaking Feb '16 with a *September* reading, considering the current Sep. record is about 0.30 below that level.

Sep. already stacking some nuclear daily prints on moyhu. Prob going to end up above Aug at this point. Still 5 or 6 months of prints until ENSO peak.

Some pretty clear SW shear undercutting the outflow this AM on visible sat. Vortex centered skew-Ts show this persisting around the 300mb level for a good 36 hours, so this will likely limit strength until it abates.

Inversion down below 850mb now. Warm core getting very intense.

We'll have to see the dropsonde, but in especially intense TCs with very strong warm cores, the max wind can be under 10kft and have a smaller-than-normal reduction to the surface. (see: Mitch)

He probably just means significantly above the 135 kt threshhold. I mean, if Lee were to reach MPI after the first EWRC, it could get down in the 910s. A 150 kt storm is not impossible with this setup. I'm not calling for that as there can always be unexpected variables, but he probably thinks it will. Yeah, I mean the more reliable guidance is down in the 910s-920s with a superb setup and gargantuan upper level outflow channels, so it checks out. ERCs and a touch of mid-level shear are the biggest "issues".

Ah, the dreaded shrimp. This storm is speedrunning all of the harbingers of a future buzzsaw. Don't love that upstream pattern amplification trend on the latest runs, either.

Trade wind burst pattern looks to resume after a month of relative slumber. Pretty telltale sign in the subsurface that a substantial OKW was generated. This one has more heft to it, so it may break further up the coastline.

I could see why you might think that. In this case however, there's little shear and definitely some banding in the southern semi-circle in the lead-up and during the burst. Edit: A bit of northerly shear and dry air, but nowhere near what Franklin was having to endure during its CCC phase.

If I had to guess, it's evolving more like a pre-satellite era Nino and we're trying to use satellite era data to reference against it. Nothing wrong with that per se, as it's our only reference point, but it's been a good lesson so far in the perils of small sample sizes.

This makes sense so far -- as the warm pool there has not progressed nearly as far as '15 had at this point. It is on the move (finally), as per OSCAR and GODAS (Jul -> Aug). Though I suspect it will be in fits and starts since we're still getting periodic trade surges: Compare to Jul: And GODAS: