vortex95

00z HRRR shows decent storms this afternoon, but 01-06z, it oddly has very little. The 00 and 06z RRFS is lacking in storm coverage as well. 06z 3 and 12km NAM do show plenty of tstms. Not sure what is going on here. It is not too warm aloft (700 temps 7-8 C and 1000-500 thickness 576-577), flow aloft is slightly cyclonic, and w/ temps maxing in the mid 90s and dews low-mid 70s, I see no reason why tstm coverage should not be sct-bkn. Plenty of instability CAPE 2500-3500, lapse rates better than several days ago up to 6.5 C/km at mid-levels. PWATs around 2" so big rain potential again. Winds aloft kind of MEH. So expect multicellular clusters.

Looking closer, it appears Dolphin's motion may be a Fujiwara from the remains of 13W and the new invest 98W, both to Dolphin's SE. You can see this all on the 00 hr GFS 850 vorticity attached. And in the next week, the GFS really gets carried away (see model loop attached), spinning up several more gyres (and 13W comes back), some or all that could become TCs. This happens every several years when you get a large monsoon trough in the NWPAC. JTWC/RJTD do not always declare these systems, esp. if they are very small, but just b/c they are very small does not mean they are not legit TCs. If anything, the small TCs tend to be stronger than any satellite estimate can provide! 5 named storms at once in the NWPAC has occurred many times, but only 6 at once one time. See table attached.

RORY Yoronjima pressure dropped to at least 938 mb as the eye passed. Since the reports are hourly, the pressure likely got lower. However, the winds are not what one would expect for such a small inner core and low pressure. RORY 070600Z AUTO 11031G42KT 2300 RA BR SCT008 OVC010 //////TCU 28/27 Q0959 RORY 070500Z AUTO 11032G45KT 3300 -RA BR BKN006 BKN010 OVC013 //////TCU 28/27 Q0959 RORY 070400Z AUTO 11031G44KT 1500 RA BR FEW004 BKN007 OVC008 //////TCU 28/27 Q0957 RORY 070300Z AUTO 10040G68KT 0600 RA FG OVC004 //////CB 28/28 Q0951 RORY 070200Z AUTO 06022G33KT 1200 -RA BR FEW003 BKN005 BKN007 //////TCU 29/28 Q0938 RORY 070100Z AUTO 33055G71KT 0200 RA FG SCT004 BKN007 OVC012 //////TCU 28/28 Q0951 RORY 070000Z AUTO 33038G51KT 1300 RA BR SCT006 BKN009 OVC011 //////TCU 28/27 Q0961

And it is jogging S. That pretty good influence for island mountains that are only 1000-1700 ft!

I often say "golf ball sized" raindrops!

Yes, it is an odd duck. I would have thought it would have become annular now w/ a giant eye, but it keeps reforming a small inner core. The storm's gale radii did expand over time at least, so that part of the fcst worked out well.

Local STEIN SHIELD, like the local WEYMOUTH SHIELD! I know it is more long-term, but is it? PVD is only -0.67" Y-T-D. CON -0.55 Y-T-D and ORH +1.24. Yes, BOS is a "hole" but that is quite local and it we know it is low by about 2" due to bad LEQ from the big S+ events this winter. | At what point does long-term drought "go away" as a weight for considering drought? It is not defined anywhere I can find. A *lot* of decisions about land and water management are made from the drought monitor, so it needs to reflect actual conditions accurately! Back in the day, the Crop Moisture and Palmer Drought Severity Index were used and IMHO, these are better. They parse things out instead of one lumped categorical map. See attachments for current conditions. I don't see any drought/dry issues in New England!

This is why I do not always trust the U.S. Drought Monitor. And yes, I know there is more than just rainfall that goes into it, and there are 4 types of drought, but really? Look at the MA drought map 6/30 compared to 8/4 (attached). Then look at the 6/30 to 8/4 rainfall for the FMH area and BOS area (also attached). So we have locations in the FMH area that got more than double the rainfall compared to the BOS area, and the BOS area goes from svr drought to abnormally dry, and the FMH area is still in svr drought? Sorry, that's too big of a disparity to be correct from a practical and sensible impact POV! And the type of rain that fell in this period -- two summer nor'easters and the rainfall was spread out during those events, not falling in short tstm bursts, which makes difference for runoff and soil percolation. And some locations near/along the S coast had their wettest July on record! This kind of disparity is nothing new concerning drought labeling and status. WA state recently, similar issue. All indicators were AOA normal in May, except for snowpack, and they declared a drought emergency. And really, given the drought monitor for the state at this time w/ less than half in mdt drought (see like below) - how is this an "emergency?" "Emergency" should be reserved for only the most dire and critical situations. But throwing around absolute superlatives is the norm now -- no scaling or proper perspective. IMHO, declaring "emergency" is often tool for graft, b/c it frees up $$ that would otherwise not be available. Details on WA drought "emergency." https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2026/05/why-washington-drought-emergency-should.html http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/data/png/20260505/20260505_WA_date.png

Window rattlers?

Dolphin made a strong comeback for its inner core after looking no so good earlier.

Since all the talk about wild animals. Here's something I found quite interesting as it relates to AI queries. I was listening to a WEEI morning show podcast from Jan, and it was in the news that a skier in China was mauled by a snow leopard. And I looked up snow leopard just to see what they looked like. I got that info, but of course, a list of AI common questions came up, and one was "Is snow leopard aggressive?" And the AI answer basically said no and no attacks documented on humans. Its reference source was a Reddit post from 10 years ago (attached). Yet the search also brought up a Reddit post about the Jan 2026 China attack as a link, independent of AI! So let me get this straight, AI uses a 10 yr old Reddit post that says no documented attacks from snow leopards, and it *ignores* a 6 month old Reddit post about a person mauled? WTF? AI can't see both Reddit posts, and create a better answer? The two Reddit posts directly contradict each other! Seems AI answers are either/or, it avoids caveats or "depending on the situation." Real useful...NOT!

Proxy! Snowfall seasons for the E Coast in very strong El Nino are hit or miss. No very strong El Nino has resulted in a blockbuster snow winter so far, at least for New England! One thing about very strong El Ninos, some fcsts for what happens in parts of the world have a high confidence. The 4 very strong El Ninos we have had since the 1950s, all have had suppressed ATLC hurr season and a mild CONUS winter. Active STJ and a wet srn tier also works. And everyone always thinks CA gets crushed w/ big rains and snows and the Pac NW is dry, However, in the 2015-16 event, CA underperformed big tine (prompting "endless drought" stupid hype) and the Pac NW was wet. Moral here? We have a limited dataset for very strong El Ninos, at least in the era where we can determine SSTs in the remote areas of the equatorial Pacific where it matters most, and given what happened in 2015-16, that suggests we have *not* seen the full range of what very strong El Ninos can do for sensible wx impacts around the globe simply b/c sample size is small. So if this El Nino ends up being the strongest on record, we may see some unexpected sensible wx emerge for parts of the globe, and given the non-linear nature of the Earth's system, it does not mean everything will be "worse" across the board. Higher temp anomalies end up impacting positive and negative feedbacks in various degrees and what ends up happening can be unexpected. Also, there are no less than a dozen other oscillations going on across the globe outside of ENSO, and we certainty have not seen every combo possible of then when very strong El Nino is occurring, so this can explain deviations. Yes, ENSO is among the strongest oscillations out there, but it does not occur in a vacuum! So maybe we will, esp. @CoastalWx, will be pleasantly surprised w/ frequent "VIOLENTLY BEAUTIFUL" snow vistas this coming winter! LOL. That being said, so far the ATLC hurr season is suppressed big time from the hostile upper-level conditions and the WPAC is much above avg (213% of Y-T-D ACE as of today), so that is working out as expected!

Global models has been showing a very active monsoon trough in the NWPAC w/ as many as 5 TCs at once. 5 named storms in this basin has happened many times. 6 only once on 8/15/2018. You get large monsoonal depressions and small spin-up gyres that are not always declared by JTWC. GFS for Monday shows 5 distinct systems of various intensity and size.

Was delayed, now goes into effect 8/11/26. https://dd.meteo.gc.ca/doc/genots/2026/08/03/NOCN04_CWAO_031225___62572