jconsor

Port Arthur is ~10 miles inland and still well outside the core of tiny Edouard - not surprising winds haven't been very strong so far, but that could change soon. Texas Point (at Sabine Pass) on the coast at the border of TX/LA has recently seen sustained NNW winds to 50 kt with gusts to 59 kt. This is on the "weaker" western side of the storm. https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=txpt2 On the eastern side, but a little outside the eyewall, around 12 PM CT Calcasieu Pass, LA saw sustained winds to 38 kt and gusts 45 kt. https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=capl1

While I do think Chris Martz is largely off his rocker and clearly biased, this new information (if verified) does change the background to the Nepal floods significantly IMHO: https://x.com/MatthewWielicki/status/2094549198473740371

As others have been discussing, Dolly has proven quite resilient vs. model expectations, with the recent 'explosion' of convection seemingly aided by the diffluent, highly sheared flow. Surface obs from the Leeward Islands in the NE Caribbean have been quite interesting. I agree with @vortex95 that it's pretty clear Dolly doesn't meet the criteria for a TC, but it is not far off IMHO. Thread here: https://x.com/yconsor/status/2094029423624310857

AI models are not infallible. Sometimes they can be "blind" until the last minute, as appears to be the case with 96L. https://x.com/yconsor/status/2092682443710923077

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck... https://x.com/yconsor/status/2092623985091494311

You can find VP anomaly from 1940s to present from JMA 3Q reanalysis here: https://ds.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/tcc/tcc/products/clisys/figures/db_hist_jun_tcc.html (10 day means) https://ds.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/tcc/tcc/products/clisys/figures/db_hist_mon_tcc.html (monthly means) In the menu on upper left under "Field", click on Tropics. Then under Element, click 200 hPa Velocity Potential.

Recent guidance targeting northern NJ for heaviest rainfall: https://x.com/BhatiaKieran/status/2082103580756971568

Our next US hurricane threat comes from an unlikely place so early in the season - the eastern/central Pacific! Fausto is expected to track west in general direction of Hawaii by mid next week, but big questions remain on whether it turns more NW and weakens (a la EPS) or continues westward and threatens Hawaii. Even a tropical storm strength system passing near Hawaii so early in the season would be in rare company. Check out my latest blog with more details: https://hurricanehacker.substack.com/p/eastern-pacific-stealing-tropical (Note - while my blog is mainly Atlantic focused, when there is a land threat in the eastern or central Pacific I will cover it. The subsequent posts on Fausto will be more in-depth than this one... please follow the blog on Substack for updates.)

Bertha has been a rather confounding/challenging TC to forecast. I'd be wary of being fooled by its current appearance (LLC decoupled from convection). Posted in-depth thoughts on Bertha's future here at my blog: https://hurricanehacker.substack.com/p/bertha-gaining-strength-heading-for

While there is typically relatively high uncertainty for nascent, not well defined systems, I agree with NHC and posters here that the uncertainty here is unusually high due to the forecast coast-parallel track and the strong dependence of the track later this week on how quickly future Bertha gets organized in the next day or two. I go into the potential scenarios and all of the details here: https://hurricanehacker.substack.com/p/tropical-storm-bertha-likely-to-form?r=etzas

Will the tropical system off the west coast of Florida manage to organize despite moderate northerly wind shear over the next few days? It's expected to spend three to five days over the very warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, which suggests we shouldn't count this system out. While a weaker system is the most likely scenario, there is the potential for a stronger system if it continues moving west under strong central/southeast US ridging and doesn't turn quickly northward toward Florida. https://hurricanehacker.substack.com/p/tricky-forecast-for-gulf-of-mexico

Everyone is focused on the TX/LA impacts (rightfully so), but just wanted to note that by Fri this could easily have a "second coming" and bring tropical storm conditions to the coastal Carolinas. I wrote about this in my blog: https://hurricanehacker.substack.com/p/low-pressure-high-water-gulf-system?r=etzas

Seeing some potential interesting tropical mischief in the GOM next week. A stalled frontal boundary providing vorticity, remnant energy from the system entering the BOC this weekend dragging up lots of tropical moisture, and indications of a pocket of lower shear and diffluence between central US trough and a persistent GOM ridge: https://x.com/yconsor/status/2065067111521652967

13/6/2 with 90 ACE (I think a reasonable range for ACE accounting for uncertainty at this stage is 60-115 ACE). My ACE forecast is slightly lower than the mean of the seasonal forecasts on https://seasonalhurricanepredictions.bsc.es/forecast/seasonal-predictions See https://seasonalhurricanepredictions.bsc.es/about/forecasters for more background on how each group/agency produces its seasonal forecasts. 268Wx and Univ. of Arizona have shown particular skill vs. other forecasts in past +ENSO years like 2019 and 2023 (when ACE was generally notably higher than most seasonal forecasts) and in -ENSO years like 2022 and 2024 (when ACE was generally notably lower than most seasonal forecasts). Interestingly, 268Wx and Univ. of Arizona this year represent the far high end of the forecast spectrum in terms of ACE/level of activity. -Yaakov

Went into more depth on the potential implications of the persistent -PDO for how the El Nino evolves and the degree of atmospheric coupling in the thread below. Would honestly surprise me to see this El Nino and the pattern in the Atlantic tropics evolve like 1982, 1987, 1997 and 2015. I'm thinking we most likely see something about halfway in between those years and "Active El Ninos" like 1951, 1969, and 2018 - perhaps something a little more active than 1957, 1965, 1976 and 2002 in terms of Atlantic activity. https://x.com/yconsor/status/2052132299139858764