{ "number": 942, "headline": "May 25, 2026 Monday Tropical Update", "standfirst": "Powerful Typhoon Jangmi ready to come online this week in Western Pacific", "desk": "tropics", "dateline": { "place": "Weather Trader", "state": null, "lat": null, "lon": null, "site_key": null, "site_name": null, "site_url": null, "accent": null }, "edition": "2026-05-26", "published": "2026-05-26T02:21:50.123000Z", "updated": null, "access": "free", "body_html": "
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This is post number 942: Good Evening! Day 146 of 2026. 6 more days until start of Atlantic Hurricane Season. Thank you to paid subscribers for renewing (some for Year 3) \u2026 and all new folks for 2026. Coupon for Annual Sub (33% off)

Author: Dr. Ryan Maue (X @RyanWeather X @weathertrader)

My Atlantic Hurricane Season Forecast (2026)

From April 7, 2026: Atlantic Seasonal Hurricane Forecast: (11/5/2)

9-13 Named Storms (11 most likely)
4-7 Hurricanes (5 or 6 most likely)
1-3 Major Hurricanes (2 most likely)
Accumulated Cyclone Energy: 75-85 (well below normal)

NOAA 2026 Atlantic Hurricane Season Forecast

More details in Thursday, May 21, 2026 Tropical Update

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Atlantic Basin Satellite Channels \u2014 major dust cloud in Eastern Atlantic

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Earlier this evening, the GeoColor satellite shows the visible \u201ctrue color\u201d just as you\u2019d see from space \u2014 in geostationary orbit (locked in place to look down) \u2026 aside from the puffy clouds and some storms, you can see the milky brown haze = African dust or Saharan Air Layers (SAL) that come off Western Africa into the Atlantic Ocean. SAL is bad for the hurricane business = stable/warm layer that limits instability and convection (storms)

Infrared (Channel 13) colorized \u2014> showers and thunderstorms

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Very limited convection over the tropical basin \u2026 but some storms with a tropical wave moving through Colombia

Water Vapor (Mid-Level Ch. 9) - troughs + areas of descending/dry air

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Huge trough from Florida extending through Bahamas along 25\u00b0N latitude to eastern Atlantic = hostile environment in late May.

ECMWF 18z | Precipitation Type + MSLP | Next 6-days

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The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) in the tropics along 5\u00b0N to 10\u00b0N is where moist air can ascend and form thunderstorms or like a convective pot boiling over = convection. In the coming weeks, especially into late June, we\u2019ll look for areas of disturbed weather \u2014 which means persistent convection \u2014 and potential formation of low pressure swirls along the ITCZ with tropical waves, in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico (America) with decaying frontal boundaries, and other pathways like tropical transition or subtropical cut-off lows. Lots of options/ways to form a tropical storm in the Atlantic in any given season.

The Bermuda High \u2014> Azores High in the subtropics usually keeps things quiet in the latitude around 30\u00b0N and suppresses the ITCZ to the south in late May into June. On the periphery of the Bermuda High, moisture plumes out of the Caribbean into the Gulf and then Texas + Southeast.

NASA GEOS5 \u2014> African dust plume forecast next 10-days

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NASA runs a version of GFS internally that is configured to ingest / test various satellite based instruments. Their dust algorithm with GEOS-5 is very good, and I really like to show the evolution of African dust (Saharan Air Layers) over the Atlantic.

Right on schedule into late May, we have multiple plumes coming off the continent that will sweep into the Caribbean this week.

North Atlantic Tropics | Quiet Next 7-days

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2 Tropical Waves \u2014 but neither will develop in the Atlantic or Caribbean \u2026 but will be watched as they enter the Eastern Pacific

Global Ocean Temperatures \u2014> Sea Surface Temperature (SST)

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Tropical storms need at least 26\u00b0C SST to form and intensify \u2026 and hurricanes most often become major with 28\u00b0C SST (at least) \u2026 the Atlantic has plenty of real estate that could support a TS or H, but nothing percolating as the basin is very hostile or unfavorable to formation. Note, it is the \u201cactual\u201d ocean temperatures that fuel hurricanes, not anomalies or deviations from climatology.

There are still rather cool (relative) areas in the Western Pacific and North Atlantic compared to the excessive warmth along the Equator and off the western coast of Mexico. The recent 20-year climatology highlights much better than an older 1991-2020 baseline.

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The Atlantic remains cooler than past 2-decades across the Main Development Region [MDR] from the Lesser Antilles (Caribbean) to the Azores and coast of Africa. This is NOT a positive signal you\u2019d expect for an active season, but Atlantic SST varies on short-time scales (1-2 weeks) and a change in position of the Bermuda/Azores subtropical ridges can adjust trade winds to quickly warm up the Atlantic MDR.

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My favorite parameter \u2014> Precipitable Water (PWAT) next 6-days

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Tropical storms and hurricanes are bundles of high moisture air > 2\u201d in the column (or more) so we look for areas of concentrated high PWAT air in the tropics \u2014> and we also can view frontal boundaries or dry air input from the middle-latitudes into the subtropics or tropics + Saharan Air Layers (dry)

Boatloads of tropical moisture from the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico surging into the Southeast U.S.

Integrated Vapor Transport \u2014> IVT next 12-days

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The transport of rivers of moist air \u2014> IVT is great metric to show tropical storm development. Here, we see the Bermuda High / subtropical ridge in charge \u2014 extending to the Azores across the Atlantic.

Western Pacific Basin \u2014 Typhoon Season is Underway | Invest 99W

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Medium change of development of Invest 99W \u2014> into a powerful Typhoon during next several days

ECMWF 18z Next 6-days Precipitation and MSLP

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Next name is Jangmi \u2014> should become a major Typhoon by this weekend

Ocean Temperatures (SST) very warm > 28\u00b0F over the \u201cwarm pool\u201d plenty sufficient for any category of Super Typhoon, assuming one can form, but actually slightly cooler than normal along the northern side of the warm pool, with a sharp gradient north of the Kuroshio Current wall.

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ECMWF Full Physics Ensemble Tracks \u2014 50 members next 10-days

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Majority of ensemble tracks recurve east of Taiwan and then near Japan

IVT shows the circulation and intensification of Invest 99W \u2014> Jangmi

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IVT is under-utilized for tropical storm formation and intensity forecasting

WPAC Precipitable Water (PWAT) next 6-days

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ECMWF AIFS-Single v2 (Data Driven Forecast System)

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ECMWF flagship A.I. weather modeling system through Day 10 \u2014 develops a 950s mb typhoon (Cat 3)

And, the ensembles from AIFS-ENS v2 (different than AIFS-Single) \u2014 also quite ambitious with the storm formation and intensification!

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Eastern Pacific Tropics | Quiet next 7-days

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Thank you for reaching the end of this post! Hopefully you enjoyed the tour of the global tropics and what\u2019s coming in the weeks/months ahead in the tropics here on Weather Trader on Substack.

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For 2026 Hurricane Season: Every 6 or 12 hours, we get an update including these model output

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My Atlantic Hurricane Season Forecast (2026)

From April 7, 2026 : Atlantic Seasonal Hurricane Forecast: (11/5/2)

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