00:00Well, we have lots to talk about in the tropics. First off, we're going to begin in the Pacific, where
00:05it's not necessarily about a short-term storm as much as the development and the obvious soon-to-be officially
00:14called El Nino.
00:16We're still, by the book, officially in a neutral phase right now, but things are beginning to ramp up here
00:20as the water temps have been rising.
00:23And again, the area where we keep an eye on the Pacific water temperatures generally runs around the equator there.
00:31So this whole zone here, Nino 3.4, is a specific benchmark out there in this part of the Pacific
00:40where we look at the water temperature and compare it to the historical average.
00:44We also compare it to the global short-term average for other locations on the globe.
00:49And again, as we take a look at the status here, I'm going to show you the chart.
00:54We have been stepping from La Nina where the water temps were cooler than the average, and that was kind
01:02of maximized in maybe November or so when we kind of hit the min point, the low point here for
01:08the La Nina.
01:09Well, we are sharply on a trajectory.
01:11Here we are now, moving April, May, June.
01:16And again, this data may lag the specifically present time.
01:20You can see the most recent reference point, actually April.
01:22Here we are early June.
01:24But the continued warming of the water out this way here in the tropical and equatorial Pacific, we are blasting
01:33into an El Nino here, and likely it'll be official here within the next week.
01:38So what does this mean?
01:40We're looking at warmer-than-average water temperatures.
01:42That leads to weaker trade winds, or at least it's correlated with weaker trade winds.
01:48They do run hand-in-hand.
01:49Some of this is chicken versus the egg, which comes first.
01:52But the trade winds are a little weaker right now over the Pacific, and that's allowing the water to be
01:57warmer.
01:57That leads to less wind shear, more hurricane activity in the East Pacific and the Central Pacific, for that matter.
02:04But there is a downstream correlation to that.
02:08It's all interconnected.
02:09Less wind, so less wind shear in the Pacific, more wind shear in the Atlantic Basin.
02:15And you got more wind shear, that means more disruptive headwinds and shear that would disrupt hurricanes from forming in
02:24the Atlantic and the Caribbean.
02:25So when we look at history, during La Nina years, which is like what we had last year, we see
02:30more activity in the Atlantic Basin.
02:33This is for the Atlantic tally of—now, RONI is the relative index here for El Nino and La Nina.
02:41It's looking at ocean water temperatures compared to—even if we're seeing some warming in the long term for the oceans,
02:48this is comparing that Nino 3.4 region with how we stand at the current time compared to the rest
02:54of the globe.
02:55So it's a relative index.
02:57But you can see during El Ninos, we see less Atlantic hurricanes.
03:02During the opposite, during La Nina, we see more Atlantic hurricanes.
03:05And this year, we are favoring, obviously, a strong El Nino, so this is where we're going to be here.
03:11And that's going to lead to our slightly less active hurricane season for the Atlantic Basin.
03:16That's our forecast.
03:17So again, we're going to be filling in the gap here.
03:19It does appear that we could take the liberty here momentarily, at least very, very soon, that we're going to
03:26fill in the pie chart here.
03:27And again, we'll follow the lead of Alex Da Silva and long-range lead forecaster Paul Pastelok and actually by
03:35the chief meteorologist John Porter with this.
03:37But the inevitable is just happening now here as we deal with, again, officially—we're on the brink of the official
03:45declaration of El Nino.
03:48Now, with that said, there is a disturbance we're tracking that will be moving north here to a plume in
03:54the Atlantic Basin here in the southwestern Caribbean.
03:57Extra moisture down near Nicaragua.
04:00We're also tracking some extra plumes of moisture near areas near the Dominican Republic.
04:05And we're going to be watching this disturbance pull north here, the one closer to Nicaragua and Honduras.
04:11Let's take a look at the models here briefly and see how this plays out.
04:14Now, here we have the GFS model, and you can see a disturbance east of there, a chunk of moisture.
04:21It begins to spin up over the west-central Caribbean early next week.
04:26And in the world of the GFS, this runs the gap between Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula Wednesday, Thursday.
04:33There was a time, and there have been times in the past week and a half, when this has spun
04:37up a tropical storm, moving it into Florida.
04:40Is it showing that now?
04:41No, the GFS is not.
04:42But it is showing an area of circulation becoming a bit more likely, where there's less wind shear.
04:49And there's also going to be a trough of low pressure that dips in near that or to the west
04:54of that that may help to draw that a little farther west.
04:58So we're going to be watching this system.
05:00And in the world of the GFS, we have an area of circulation over the northern and then western Gulf
05:05about a week, week and a half from now, Sunday, Monday of the following weekend.
05:09Something to watch.
05:10Here's the European model.
05:11It also shows a zone of extra moisture.
05:15It favors more of a land track, kind of hovering more over Central America, but it's still there.
05:22And then as we pick that up, the European does bring it into the Bay of Campeche and the southwestern
05:28Gulf.
05:28Something to watch doesn't come as far north as the GFS, but, you know, there's a window of opportunity around
05:34the 13th, 14th of June, where we might see something in the southwestern Gulf.
05:38Now, here's the Canadian model.
05:39This one favors a more southern disturbance.
05:42You could see a fragment of that that following weekend a little more aligned here with the European model over
05:51the Bay of Campeche.
05:52Might we see something develop there?
05:54We're not sure, but there's a possibility of that.
05:57Now, there is some strong wind shear in the short term that will combat this.
06:02And, again, there's even going to be some perhaps just west of this possible storm in the GFS world.
06:08You could see a dip in the jet stream.
06:10That might sink over parts of the Gulf, but if it drifts far enough west, that could allow room for
06:15the system to move to the west.
06:16And if that dip in the jet stream marinates over the Gulf long enough, that could spin something up on
06:21its own.
06:22The European, again, the steering flow is just different in this case where the European drives it farther west into
06:28land.
06:29So as we take you back into our graphics here, if a dip in the jet stream camps out over
06:34the Caribbean long enough for 48 hours or more, that can lead to some opportunity for development here.
06:40So we're just keeping an eye on the Gulf as an area of concern into the middle of June.
06:47That's your forecast feed for now.
Comments