The tropics go quiet

Alberto has transitioned to a powerful extratropical storm over the Canadian Maritime provinces today, and no new threat areas have emerged over the Atlantic that look likely to become our next tropical storm--Beryl. Wind shear increased over the Caribbean last night, tearing apart two tropical waves that were producing some strong thunderstorms. The thunderstorm activity in the ITCZ off the coast of Africa remains disorganized. All of the global forecast models have backed off on forecasting tropical storm development in the next five days, although the GFS model is still predicting one or two tropical storms might form between Africa and the Lesser Antilles Islands the last week of June. It looks like we're in for a quiet period for at least the next three days. This is good news for the 300 boats sailing from Newport, RI to Bermuda on Friday as part of the Newport Bermuda Race. Alberto cleared out just in time!

Jeff Masters