An area of disturbed weather over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, located about 130 miles east-northeast of Melbourne, Florida on Monday morning (Invest 91L), has grown more organized this morning. Surface pressures are falling, and 91L is close to tropical depression status.
JeffMasters, • 3:31 PM GMT on June 30, 2014
An area of disturbed weather over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, about 230 miles east of Jacksonville, Florida (Invest 91L) has grown more organized since Saturday, and is a threat to develop into a tropical depression early this week. Satellite loops on Sunday morning showed 91L with only a modest amount of heavy thunderstorm activity, but the system had a pronounced spin, and the heavy thunderstorms were organizing into spiral bands.
JeffMasters, • 2:45 PM GMT on June 29, 2014
A area of disturbed weather over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream current off the Southeast U.S. coast has been designated Invest 91L by NHC. Satellite loops on Saturday morning showed 91L with only a small amount of heavy thunderstorm activity that was poorly organized. There was no hint of a surface circulation trying to form. Long-range radar out of Melbourne, Florida showed a few modest areas of rainfall over the ocean about 50 - 150 miles east of the Central Florida coast.
JeffMasters, • 3:39 PM GMT on June 28, 2014
A blow-up of thunderstorms over Texas and Louisiana on Wednesday created an area of low pressure that tracked east-northeast over the Southeast U.S., and was over Georgia and South Carolina on Friday. This low will emerge over the coastal South Carolina waters on Saturday, and move over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream current by Sunday. This system has the potential to develop into a tropical depression, though the 00Z Friday runs of our reliable tropical cyclone genesis models did not show development.
JeffMasters, • 2:55 PM GMT on June 27, 2014
The heat is on in Greenland, where the temperature peaked at 73°F in Kangerlussuaq on June 15, close to the all-time hottest temperature ever recorded in Greenland of 78.6°F, set in 2013. The unusual warmth this year melted nearly 40% of the Greenland Ice Sheet in mid-June, and scientists with the Dark Snow Project are on the ice right now conducting a two-month field experiment on the causes and implications of Greenland ice melt.
JeffMasters, • 2:50 PM GMT on June 25, 2014
May 2014 was Earth's warmest May since records began in 1880. The planet has now had two back-to-back warmest months on record, since NOAA also rated April 2014 as being tied for the warmest April on record. This is the first time Earth has experienced back-to-back warmest months on record since a four-month stretch during March, April, May, and June 2010. Global ocean temperatures during May 2014 tied for the greatest departure from average of any month in recorded history.
JeffMasters, • 3:31 PM GMT on June 23, 2014
There were no tropical cyclones anywhere in the world on Friday, and none of the reliable models for forecasting tropical cyclone genesis in the Atlantic is predicting development over the coming five days. Since the active hurricane period we are in began in 1995, six of the nineteen years (32%) did not have a named storm develop in June. I give an 80% chance that 2014 will join that list.
JeffMasters, • 4:12 PM GMT on June 20, 2014
Syria's devastating civil war that began in March 2011 has killed over 200,000 people, displaced at least 4.5 million, and created 3 million refugees. While the causes of the war are complex, a key contributing factor was the nation's devastating 2006 - 2011 drought, one of the worst in the nation's history, according to new research accepted for publication in the journal Weather, Climate, and Society by water resources expert Dr. Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute.
JeffMasters, • 12:54 PM GMT on June 18, 2014
Rare twin tornadoes plowed through the small town of Pilger (population 380) in northeastern Nebraska Monday night, killing at least two people. These were the first tornado deaths in Nebraska in over ten years, since the May 22, 2004 Hallam, Nebraska tornado. Yesterday's unusual twin tornadoes were part of a tornado outbreak that brought nineteen tornadoes to Nebraska and Iowa that injured at least nineteen people.
JeffMasters, • 2:27 PM GMT on June 17, 2014
JeffMasters, • 2:49 PM GMT on June 16, 2014
There are no tropical cyclone threat areas in the Atlantic to discuss today, and none of the reliable models for forecasting tropical cyclone genesis is predicting development over the coming five days. However, the 00Z Friday run of the GFS model predicts that a low pressure area will develop over the Western Caribbean by Wednesday, and push northwards into the Gulf of Mexico and become a tropical storm late in the week. Should we be concerned?
JeffMasters, • 3:49 PM GMT on June 13, 2014
JeffMasters, • 3:02 PM GMT on June 12, 2014
Oman is nervously watching Tropical Cyclone Nanauk, a tropical storm with 65 mph winds that is moving west-northwest at 6 mph across the Arabian Sea. Nanauk is over some of the warmest ocean waters on the planet, 31 - 32°C (88 - 90°F). Nanauk is moving into an area with dryer air but lower wind shear, and it is difficult to predict how these two competing influences might affect the storm.
JeffMasters, • 3:16 PM GMT on June 11, 2014
The Eastern Pacific's third named storm of 2014 is here, as Tropical Storm Cristina spun into life late Monday night about 150 miles south of Mexico's Pacific coast. Cristina is headed away from Mexico, and it is unlikely that any watches or warnings will be required for this storm. Tropical Cyclone Two, a tropical storm with 45 mph winds, has formed in the Arabian Sea. Tropical Cyclone Two is expected to head west-northwest toward Oman and intensify into a Category 1 storm later this week.
JeffMasters, • 3:21 PM GMT on June 10, 2014
JeffMasters, • 3:16 PM GMT on June 10, 2014
JeffMasters, • 2:26 PM GMT on June 09, 2014
The June 5, 2014 El Niño update from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center gives a 70% chance that El Niño will form this summer, and an 80% by fall, but El Niño odds are higher than this. A strong Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) event is forecast to develop over the central-eastern Pacific later this month in through early July. This MJO location favors for another period of westerly wind bursts over the Central Pacific, an atmospheric signature that is likely to be the final kick needed for a blossoming El Niño event.
Michael Ventrice • 2:36 PM GMT on June 07, 2014
Heavy rains continue to fall in Southeast Mexico due to a tropical disturbance in the Southern Gulf of Mexico's Bay of Campeche, Invest 90L. Satellite loops show that 90L has a well-defined surface circulation, but limited heavy thunderstorm activity. High wind shear of 30 knots, due to strong upper-level winds out of the west, is keeping all of 90L's heavy thunderstorms confined to the east side of the center.
JeffMasters, • 2:15 PM GMT on June 06, 2014
A tropical disturbance in the Southern Gulf of Mexico's Bay of Campeche, Invest 90L, is nearly stationary, and is bringing a few heavy thunderstorms to the Gulf waters and Mexican shore along the Bay of Campeche. Satellite loops show that 90L is poorly organized, with a broad area of spin that is not well-defined, and only limited heavy thunderstorm activity. Radar out of Alvarado shows the storm has developed two low-level spiral bands near the coast that bear watching, though.
JeffMasters, • 2:28 PM GMT on June 05, 2014
Tropical Storm Boris made landfall near 2 am EDT Wednesday in Southeast Mexico as a tropical storm with 40 mph winds. The storm has weakened to a tropical depression and is expected to dissipate later today, but Boris remains an extremely dangerous rainfall threat to the region. Tonala on the coast of Chiapas has recorded 12.5" (318 mm) of storm-total rainfall, and NHC is calling for rainfall totals of up to 20" from the storm.
JeffMasters, • 2:56 PM GMT on June 04, 2014
orrential rains are lashing Southeast Mexico and Southern Guatemala as Tropical Storm Boris lumbers northwards at about 5 mph, with landfall expected to occur Wednesday in Southeast Mexico. Even though TD-2E has top winds of just 35 mph, and will, at worst, become a weak tropical storm before landfall, it is an extremely dangerous rainfall threat to the region, as the storm's slow motion is expected keep heavy rains over the region the entire week.
JeffMasters, • 3:29 PM GMT on June 03, 2014
President Obama's administration unveiled on Monday the "Clean Power Plan", a proposal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing U.S. power plants under the 1970 Clean Air Act by 25% by 2020, compared to 2005 levels, and by 30% by 2030. The new regulations would hit the nation's 491 coal-fired power plants the most, since these plants account for 74% of the electric sector's carbon dioxide emissions.
JeffMasters, • 8:13 PM GMT on June 02, 2014
The 2014 Atlantic hurricane season is officially underway, and we already have an area of interest in the Gulf of Mexico to talk about. An area of low pressure over the Southern Gulf of Mexico's Bay of Campeche is generating disorganized heavy thunderstorm activity, and this area has a slight potential to develop late this week. In their 8 am EDT Monday Tropical Weather Outlook, NHC gave the disturbance a 10% chance of developing by Saturday.
JeffMasters, • 2:53 PM GMT on June 02, 2014