Invest 97L is underway in the far eastern Atlantic over the Cabo Verde Islands, and is puffing impressive convection within a moisture rich environment — just behind a Saharan Air Layer. Another strong tropical wave is on its heels still over Africa, but it is not expected to develop in the MDR.

Sunday Evening Tropical Update

1. Central North Atlantic (20%) Invest 96L: low chance of something weak developing on its way into north Atlantic well away from land.

2. Invest 97L: main event —> over cool waters in the far eastern Atlantic but billowing convection. A tropical depression or storm could develop right away if the convective activity sustains, otherwise, it may be within the next 48-72 hours once it reaches warmer water > 26°C — then rapid intensification episode could happen to get it up to Major Hurricane Intensity in 7-8 days. UNKNOWN impacts to the East Coast of the USA.

3. Eastern Pacific Basin: Henriette (08E) is back as a hurricane over cool SSTs but within low vertical wind shear environment. The little system may actually reach major hurricane status north of Hawaii.

4. Western Pacific Typhoon Update: Tropical Storm Podul (16W) heading westward toward Taiwan but intensity uncertainty is high (TS —> Typhoon)

ECMWF 12z | Precipitable Water Next 10-days

My favorite parameter: Invest 97L comes into the picture on a track northeast of the Caribbean where it then recurves NW to a position off the Carolinas in 10-days. This is a more westward solution among the ensemble members but consistent with the large envelope of uncertainty (cone) at 9-11 days.

Note, the tropical wave on the heels of Invest 97L (Erin?) is further to the south and reaches the Caribbean in 10-days. Atlantic hurricane season is still several weeks from peaking.

ECMWF 12z | Simulated Satellite Next 10-days

The tropical waves and Saharan Air Layers are all moving in tandem generally westward … and interacting along the way. As Invest 97L tracks W, it will need to content with this dry, stable/warm layer.

ECMWF 12Z | Integrated Vapor Transport Next 12-days | Atlantic Basin

+Moisture transport vectors from the 12z flagship solution. The ECMWF 12z control shows a East Coast “close call” similar to Erin (2001) almost 25-years ago.

ECMWF 12z Flagship Solution | Sunday for next 13-days

Atlantic Basin Outlook

Atlantic Satellite Imagery | Infrared

Significant flare up of convection with Invest 97L.

Eastern Atlantic & Tropical Africa | Satellite Image

Another tropical wave is on its heels over Africa, then another in eastern Nigeria.

Invest 97L is over chilly SSTs ~25.5°C

NASA GEOS-5 | 00z DUST Aerosol Optical Depth | 8-day Forecast

Plumes of Saharan dust coming off African continent to north of tropical wave and monsoon trough/ITCZ and any tropical waves must contend with this negative influence on its trek westward across the Atlantic MDR.

Atlantic Ocean Surface Temperatures (SST) + Anomaly (vs. last 20-years)

Eastern Atlantic SSTs are not impressive compared to the past 2-years but seem to be plenty enough for 97L.

NOAA Tropical Surface Analysis | 18z

Atlantic Tropical Waves = 2 including Invest 97L (90%) and another wave that is being stretched N/S by a trough. The top half is a weak low w/20% chance of development in the north central Atlantic.

ECMWF AIFS-Single Consistently Develops a Major Hurricane | 12z Cycle

AIFS-Single is back today with landfall solutions … just keeping these for the records as we do not know how the A.I. trained systems perform — but it seems they have the same issues/pitfalls as conventional / fully physics systems.

Previous 06z | AIFS-Single

Previous 00z | AIFS-Single

These tracks at/past 10-days are “way over the horizon” of predictability and only possible/plausible track scenarios that exist in every hurricane season in August and September since 1995.

NOAA GFS Extended Range | 18z

Well out-to-sea!

Previous 12z solution | GFS

GEFS Ensembles 12z | All Tracks through Day 9

GEFS Ensembles 12z | All Tracks through Day 15

Powerful major hurricane tracks off the Florida and Southeast/East Coast by Day 15 — but vast majority are off the coast — although GEFS is underdispersive.

Canadian Machine Learning Trained + Conventional Full Physics

Checking on our friends in Canada with their world-class modeling systems.

ECMWF ensemble model outlook | Invest 97L

These are 51-realizations of the same model with different initial conditions. Each ensemble gets equal ~2% weight in a mean calculation.

The black solid open-circle line is the “ensemble mean” position every 6-hours but that is NOT a solution itself, just a statistic to show the average equally weighted track points through the next 12-days. Many Category 4+ solutions are west of that line so we can’t discount a near-coastal impact or landfall.

ECMWF Ensembles 12z | Day 10 All Tracks

ECMWF Ensembles 12z | Day 15 All Tracks

Very intense solutions with a few threats to the US (STILL low %) but still too far out (10-13 days) and vast majority are not affecting land.

AIFS Ensembles 12z | Day 10 All Tracks

AIFS Ensembles 12z | Day 15 All Tracks

Eastern and Central Pacific Tropical Update

Hurricane Henriette could reach Category 3 status — small but impressive!

Henriette is over 25°C water but it’s increasing on track to the Northwest.

Another system could form well off the coast of Mexico in 7-10 days.

Western Pacific Typhoon Update

Tropical Storm Podul (16W)

Podul forecast to become a typhoon — and if it heads a bit further south, then it could escape the worst impacts of vertical wind shear and become quite intense — landfall over Taiwan is possible.

Ryan’s notes from August:

Heading into mid-August with a more active period in the Atlantic basin —> remember that we have many models updating every 6-12 hours, and many show catastrophic or historic solutions e.g. major hurricanes near land including the U.S.

HOWEVER, nothing is imminent or set in stone. We only use models to show the “plausible” scenarios of systems that could/may develop. We have 100s of solutions generated daily — 1000s per week. Digesting this information is the job of responsible meteorologists and media — to process the data, assess the risks, and add value.

The models cannot consistently and/or skillfully look over the predictability horizon e.g. 8-10 days especially with tropical cyclones. The convection / storm clusters are not resolved by the full physics weather models at their current resolution (9 km to 25 km). Also, the A.I. models do not provide that much of an additional skill gain for individual tropical cyclones that have not yet formed.

As we watch tropical waves come off Africa in the coming days, each/every has the potential to develop especially heading into August. However, when/where and what impacts are unknown.

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.