{ "number": 946, "headline": "May 29, 2026 Friday Tropical Update", "standfirst": "Gulf of Mexico next week could spin up a weak tropical system", "desk": "tropics", "dateline": { "place": "Weather Trader", "state": null, "lat": null, "lon": null, "site_key": null, "site_name": null, "site_url": null, "accent": null }, "edition": "2026-05-30", "published": "2026-05-30T00:26:31.529000Z", "updated": null, "access": "free", "body_html": "
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This is post number 946: Good Evening! Day 150 of 2026. 4 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 (Annual 33% off)

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

Headlines for Friday

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HAFS-A next 5-days for Jangmi (06W)

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)

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Atlantic Basin Satellite Channels

Milky haze with Saharan Air Layer and dust across the eastern half of the tropical Atlantic. A strong trough has completely cleared out the Caribbean.

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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 clear, not a cloud in the eastern Caribbean. Some convection across Panama with a tropical wave. Gulf of Mexico moisture transport continues to fire convection.

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

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Honking mid-level trough = bone dry air completely wiping out clouds and any showers over a large area of the Caribbean into subtropical Atlantic. This would be a showstopper for any tropical activity during the heart of the season.

ECMWF 18z | Precipitation Type + MSLP | Next 10-days

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Eyes on the Gulf of Mexico for a brief tropical depression or storm spin-up that would mainly be a continued rainfall threat. The \u201chot spot\u201d for storm development in early June is the Gulf especially for poorly organized blobs of convection.

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 (00z) \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.

Major SAL plume half way across the tropical Atlantic \u2014 will continue to the Caribbean and maybe the Gulf within 6-7 days. Interesting clockwise swirl of SAL/dust gets intertwined in a high-pressure cell near the Azores.

North Atlantic Tropics | Quiet Next 7-days

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2 Tropical Waves \u2014 none developing.

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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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The SAL + strong trade winds should keep the MDR cooler than normal into early June.

My favorite parameter \u2014> Precipitable Water (PWAT) next 10-days

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Boatloads of tropical moisture from the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico surging into Texas to Florida. You can see the sharp wave of the Saharan Air Layer smashing westward through the Caribbean in the coming days.

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)

Integrated Vapor Transport \u2014> IVT next 10-days

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Maybe a swirl in the Gulf of Mexico in 6-days \u2014 that\u2019s the only show in town.

The transport of rivers of moist air \u2014> IVT is great metric to show tropical storm development. The impressive plume of tropical moisture is easily tracked through the Caribbean into the Gulf of Mexico \u2014 with the subtropical ridge pushed well east to the Azores as the massive upper-level trough dominates the Western subtropical Atlantic.

Western Pacific Basin \u2014 Typhoon Season is Underway | Jangmi (06W)

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Tropical Storm Jangmi (06W) has developed a little more inner-core but has a little more work to do in order to moisten / eradicate the dry air in the center.

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Jangmi looks more like a Typhoon \u2026 and should increase from 50 knots to 65 knots in the next 12-hours

Track of Jangmi is well east of Taiwan \u2014 with southern islands of Japan under most threat at storm expands in size and undergoes extratropical transition. The center is just east of Tokyo in 5-days

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Ocean Temperatures (SST) very warm > 28\u00b0F over the \u201cwarm pool\u201d plenty sufficient for any category of 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. Jangmi has 3-4 days over the warmest water before hitting the much cooler waters.

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HAFS-A mesoscale model has plataued with intensity in the 960s mb \u2014 so we can expect around 95-knots maximum winds = Cat 2/3

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

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Google Deep Mind

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Difference again between ECMWF full-physics and the Google Deep Mind \u2026 there\u2019s almost much less cross-track spread with the Google ensemble forecasts. I think we still want more spread \u2014 to capture outliers especially at the outset of any storm development. Something to watch in the coming weeks/months of hurricane season.

ECMWF IVT shows the circulation and intensification of Jangmi (06W)

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

Maybe another system in the South China Sea in 4-5 days

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Eastern Pacific Tropics | 2026 Season To Get Underway

Amanda, Boris, Cristina, Douglas, Elida

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80% Chance of Tropical Depression development within next 7-days but not seeing much on the satellite imagery this evening

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Ocean Temperatures are much warmer than normal for late-May

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ECMWF Precipitable Water Next 10-days

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Integrated Vapor Transport Next 12-days

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Not expecting too much out of the first system being watched \u2026 but could see pressure in the 990s = tropical storm

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Next system in the 8-10 day range along the coast of Mexico could be the season\u2019s first hurricane (or stronger)

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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 growing warmth along the Equator and off the western coast of Mexico with the oncoming El Ni\u00f1o. The recent 20-year climatology highlights much better than an older 1991-2020 baseline.

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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.

Maps sourced from weathermodels.com designed and innovated by yours truly! Please subscribe there for real-time access to the newest maps, charts from all of the weather models including ECMWF and AIFS, and NOAA GFS/GEFS, HRRR/RRFS and Blend of Models (NBM). NOAA WPC and SPC for fronts/convective outlooks.

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

NOAA 2026 Atlantic Hurricane Season Forecast

More details in Thursday, May 21, 2026 Tropical Update

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Tropical Storm Jangmi (06W) intensifying slowly in the Western Pacific east of Luzon

Eastern Pacific hurricane season should get underway with a weak TS (80%) well away from land

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