00:00Well, history is going to be broken in the Atlantic Basin.
00:05Thanks for joining us here on the feed.
00:06I'm meteorologist Bernie Raynaud.
00:08What are we talking about?
00:11The latest occurrence of a hurricane in the Atlantic Basin.
00:16That record, by the way, is September 11th.
00:19Today, out of all dates, set back in 2002 and 2003.
00:23We are not going to see not only a hurricane this week.
00:27I'm skeptical where we're going to see it in the next week as well.
00:31There may not even be a window for a hurricane until maybe next weekend, and it's only a possibility.
00:38But, I mean, we are in somewhat uncharted territory here.
00:41Now, you have to remember this, the September 11th, is during the satellite era, right,
00:47which is from the middle 60s because there are years well before the satellite era
00:53where there wasn't a hurricane in September that we knew about.
00:57But without a satellite, that record isn't as impressive.
01:01Now, we are in the heart of the hurricane season, no doubt about that.
01:05I mean, take a look at this.
01:07Here's the season as a whole when you look at it.
01:12You know, we peaked yesterday on September 10th.
01:17Now, history tells us we start declining, but really, when you look at it,
01:22the heart of the hurricane season is from about mid-August through mid-September.
01:26That's where we get most of the storms, all right?
01:29But at the Atlantic, we're already running well below historical averages.
01:33Take a look at that.
01:33We've had five storms, five named storms.
01:38That's it right now.
01:40Arthur, Bertha, Cristobal, Dolly, and Edward.
01:44All tropical storms, not hurricanes.
01:47Now, just to give you an idea of where we should be in the Atlantic Basin,
01:52I mean, this time of the year, we should be at our eighth named storm.
01:58We should already have three hurricanes.
02:00The first, the historical average for the first hurricane in the Atlantic Basin is August 11th, all right?
02:07So we're well behind that.
02:10And the first major hurricane, that's Category 3 or better, is September 1st, and we haven't had any.
02:16So to give you an idea of where we are, we're about a month behind schedule in the Atlantic hurricane
02:22season relative to normal.
02:23Now, what's interesting is in the Pacific, it's the exact opposite.
02:28Take a look at this.
02:29This is what we've seen in the Pacific so far.
02:34We've had 14 named storms, 14, and to give you an idea, the 14th named storm, usually in the eastern
02:42Pacific, is October 14th.
02:44So if you think about it this way, we're about a month ahead of schedule in the Pacific, about a
02:52month below historical averages in the Atlantic.
02:55So in a sense, in the tropical standpoint in North America, we're kind of evened out.
03:03All right.
03:03So that's kind of where we are, where we've been.
03:06Where are we right now?
03:08Well, you take a look at the Atlantic, and it is just dead quiet here.
03:12Take a look at it.
03:13There's the Atlantic.
03:14There is literally, literally nothing in the MDR.
03:19This is called the MDR, this area between the islands, the Lesser Antilles, and the west coast of Africa.
03:27This is where you get most of the tropical development, yet there is nothing going on right now, and there's
03:31a reason for that.
03:33The two main reasons, let's start with the first one, dry air.
03:36Look at all the dry air.
03:38I mean, you could literally follow the dry air from Jamaica all the way across the Atlantic.
03:44Now, there are some areas where we have some moisture, where we don't have dry air, where we do have
03:50some moisture denoted by the white and the blue.
03:53But what we also have in this area is a tremendous amount of wind shear.
04:00All right.
04:01That's strong winds in the middle and upper part of the atmosphere right now.
04:05And I want to show you what the wind shear looks like in the Atlantic Basin as we speak.
04:11So here it is.
04:12And again, to give you your bearings, this is the west coast of Africa.
04:16Here are the Lesser Antilles.
04:18And look at these belt.
04:19Look at this belt of wind here.
04:21Any tropical wave that would survive the dry air would eventually get into this wind shear near the islands and
04:28in the Caribbean and would just rip it apart.
04:31Now, you will notice this is the area where wind shear is lowest.
04:37The Gulf and the southwestern Atlantic are off the southeast coast of the United States.
04:41And as I go through this, take a look at it.
04:43There's Sunday.
04:45Here's Monday.
04:46Here's Tuesday.
04:47What do you still see?
04:48Here's the west coast of Africa.
04:50Here are the islands.
04:51What do you see?
04:52Still wind shear.
04:53So here we are on the 15th of September.
04:57Remember, still notice pockets of low wind shear in the Gulf and the southwest Atlantic, although we do have some
05:04in the southwest Atlantic by the 15th.
05:06Then 16th, what are you looking at?
05:10Still wind shear.
05:1217th, wind shear.
05:1418th of September, wind shear.
05:16Where don't we have it?
05:18In the Gulf and parts of the southwest Atlantic.
05:21And you can keep going with this.
05:23This is a week from now, Saturday.
05:26All right?
05:27So a week from now, we're talking Saturday.
05:30Wind shear.
05:31Caribbean across the Atlantic.
05:33Sunday, the 20th.
05:35Wind shear all across the Atlantic.
05:38Where don't you have it?
05:39Southwest Atlantic in the Gulf.
05:42So my point is, tropical waves coming off Africa, we're not even going to worry about them.
05:48We'll track them, but it's not going to develop there.
05:51The way we're going to get tropical development is homegrown development.
05:55Homegrown.
05:57That means energy coming from the jet stream coming into the area.
06:02I want to go to about the 18th or 16th of September.
06:08This trough is going to split.
06:10And you see you have this energy here off the southwest coast of the United States.
06:14Off the southeast coast.
06:16Then you have this high.
06:16This is an area to watch.
06:19Watch.
06:19You see that energy going across the Gulf?
06:22Right in here.
06:23So we're talking about a week from now.
06:25I think this is the next chance.
06:27That's the European.
06:28The GFS, same story.
06:30Look at that.
06:30You have energy that's going to be coming across the southwest Atlantic and into the Gulf of Mexico
06:36where you have an area of low development, of low wind shear.
06:40And as a result, that's the area we're going to highlight right in here.
06:46If we get development, it'll be in the Gulf or also in the southwest Atlantic.
06:53That's an area to watch.
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