June 2, 2026 Tuesday Tropical Update
Eastern Pacific basin finally sees first tropical depression
June 2026 was the 18th-warmest June in the 132-year national record (1895–2026), at 70.6°F against a 1991–2020 normal of 69.5°F (+1.2°F).
June 2026 was the 32nd-wettest June in the 132-year national record (1895–2026), at 3.3in against a 1991–2020 normal of 3.1in (+0.2in).
NOAA/NCEI Climate at a Glance, contiguous United States. This is the observed record for the month, not a score of anything said in this piece — the forecast ledger begins 2026-08-17 and cannot reach earlier posts.
Tropical Depression 01E in the Eastern Pacific has formed this evening. It has a vigorous circulation and will become Tropical Storm Amanda on Wednesday.
Some Gulf of Mexico shower activity — weak disorganized in the coming days, but could briefly form a circulation or low pressure center. ECMWF 18z shows a mess of convection.
Ensemble Cyclone Tracks — weak ~1005 mb range lows, but could be enough to become a depression. This is June 5th (Friday morning)
Down the road, we are still watching the Gulf of Mexico for low chance of TS/Hurricane activity out of a large circulation/ gyre centered over Mexico + Central America that will spawn multiple Eastern Pacific tropical cyclones. Maybe one of those crosses in the Gulf — or some remnants. June 15th (+13 days) only a < 10% chance, which is consistent with climatology — and more noise than signal.
Basin Headlines for Tuesday
Western Pacific: Tropical Storm Jangmi (06W) now extratropical sideswiping Japan with gusty winds.
Eastern Pacific hurricane season underway with TD 01E soon to become Amanda and then meander well away from land. More storms on the way near Mexico and Central America coast.
Atlantic: Weak, disorganized system in the Gulf this week, with long-range eyeballs on whatever happens in the Eastern Pacific and over Central America.
Atlantic Basin Satellite Channels | GeoColors
Infrared (Channel 13) colorized —> showers and thunderstorms
Completely clear Caribbean with only scattered showers associated with a new tropical wave that exited the coast of Africa earlier on Tuesday.
Water Vapor (Mid-Level Ch. 9) - troughs + areas of descending/dry air
A trough (yellow+orange) from Caribbean into the eastern Atlantic — closed for business with nary a cloud. Tropical wave in eastern MDR has a nice moisture shield. It would have more potential over warm waters in another few weeks, or further westward.
ECMWF 18z | Precipitation Type + MSLP | Next 6-days
Not seeing anything organized across the Atlantic including the Gulf and Caribbean. However, into mid-June, surge of moisture and more favorable background conditions with MJO passing through could always help (briefly) spin up something close to home.
NASA GEOS5 (00z) —> African dust plume forecast next 10-days
Saharan Air Layer and African dust activity will decrease after this plume pushes through the Caribbean into the Gulf — while mixing/raining out.
Then, rather quiet for early June across the Eastern Atlantic / African coast for dust.
North Atlantic Tropics | Quiet Next 7-days
3 Tropical Waves — not developing in the Atlantic, but they eventually reach the Eastern Pacific and have a chance there, too.
Atlantic Ocean Surface Temperatures (SST)
The Atlantic remains cooler than past 2-decades across the Main Development Region [MDR] from the Lesser Antilles (Caribbean) to the Canary Islands and coast of Africa. The North Atlantic off the East Coast and into the mid-latitudes is also quite cool.
My favorite parameter —> Precipitable Water (PWAT) next 6-days
Tropical storms and hurricanes are bundles of high moisture air > 2” in the column (or more) so we look for areas of concentrated high PWAT air in the tropics —> 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 —> IVT next 12-days from ECMWF AIFS
Eastern Pacific is busy with 2 or perhaps 3 systems. A moisture plume surges through the Caribbean into the Gulf and then northward through eastern U.S. by mid-June, and we will watch for any tropical cyclone development. Way down the road!
ECMWF Ensemble Spaghetti Next 15-days
50-ensembles or realizations of the next 15-day forecast of sea level pressure (L’s) tracked … and then plotted on top of each other.
Notable: handful (~10/50) members in the Gulf of Mexico by Days 12-15 = 20% chance of a TS/Hurricane, which is better odds than climatology for early/mid June.
AIFS-Ensembles (Machine Learning version of ECMWF model at 12z) through 15-days: not as excited about the Gulf, much lower probability (~5%)
Eastern Pacific Tropics | 2026 Season Underway | TD 01E (soon Amanda)
Names —> Amanda, Boris, Cristina, Douglas, Elida
Tropical Storm Amanda will likely reach 50-60 knots — outside chance of becoming a hurricane.
Ocean Temperatures are very warm — plenty for any category of hurricane
HAFS-A with my favorite parameter — always worth watching.
HAFS-A Mesoscale Nest — TD 01E shows puffs of convection for the next 5-days, but on the struggle bus.
ECMWF Precipitable Water Next 6-days
Day 6 Integrated Vapor Transport — interesting twin / elongated vorticity along Mexico + Central America —> 2 named storms for the price of one?
ECMWF EPS | Next 15-days for Eastern Pacific
Western Pacific Basin — Typhoon Season | Tropical Storm Jangmi (06W)
Jangmi is now extratropical — passing along coast of Japan
Global Ocean Temperatures —> Sea Surface Temperature (SST)
Tropical storms need at least 26°C SST to form and intensify … and hurricanes most often become major with 28°C SST (at least).
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 Niño. The recent 20-year climatology highlights much better than an older 1991-2020 baseline.
Thank you for reaching the end of this post! Hopefully you enjoyed the tour of the global tropics and what’s 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
ECMWF EPS full-physics ensembles … 50 perturbed members + control/HRES
ECMWF AIFS-Ensemble (data driven) … another 50 members + control
ECMWF AIFS-Single … a special deterministic system that has exceptional skill
NOAA GEFSv12 Ensembles … 30 perturbed members + control
NOAA GFSv16 … 13-km high resolution global deterministic
UK Met Office MOGREPS lagged ensembles … global 14-km 72-members per day
Environment Canada ensembles + Germany ICON + Australia BOM Unified Model
New Google WeatherNext 1000-member ensemble system (!) more on that in future post
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
The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) in the tropics along 5°N to 10°N 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’ll look for areas of disturbed weather — which means persistent convection — 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 —> Azores High in the subtropics usually keeps things quiet in the latitude around 30°N 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.
- Milepost
- 949 · laid 2026-06-03T01:51:44.745000Z
- Source
- https://weather.substack.com/p/june-2-2026-tuesday-tropical-update
- Digest
- 56cfe133905d4b8b2ece6a6ddbb21d32f83a2d6481fbc1ffe2b7e087a73dc78e
- Machine
- JSON