A quiet weekend for the tropics

The tropical Atlantic remains quiet today. I should mention a swirl of low clouds between Africa and the Antilles islands near 10N 35W that has a low-level circulation with a few thunderstorms, but I don't expect this low to develop. It is headed northwest towards an area of high wind shear and water temperatures below the 80 F threshold needed for tropical storm formation.

Thunderstorm activity in the ITCZ between Africa and the Lesser Antilles islands remains disorganized. The global forecast models do not show tropical storm development in the next three days, so it should be a quiet weekend. Several models are pointing to the possibility of tropical storm development around the middle of next week south of Bermuda, but the liklihood of this appears low at this time. The best chance of tropical storm development this month is probably during the last week of June, as the GFS model is still indicating favorable conditions for this time period.

Have a great weekend, everybody! I plan on catching Al Gore's movie on global warming this weekend, and will be writing a review that evaluates its scientific quality.

Jeff Masters