Look, Up in the Sky...It's a Bir, It's a Plane, No it's the SAL !!!

So I’m watching David on Friday showing this new graphic that indicated the SAL (Saharan Air Layer-African Dust) would move over us this weekend.   I thought, c’mon David…really?   Sure enough, I’m out playing tennis (Yikes was it hot!) this afternoon and noticed the dingy looking sky & the hazy sunshine.  It was especially noticeable when you looked to the north and saw the towering cumulus clouds that normally stand out against the deep blue tropical sky.  But not today as the dust has arrived as David promised.   It didn’t help with our temperatures as we reached the mid-90s without much cloud cover and nearly zero shower coverage.  The next several days shouldn’t  see any major changes as we await September and that 1^st real cold front.   Not happening anytime soon.

 

Almost every day in August & September we have an anniversary of a past hurricane somewhere.   We remember the biggies (Camille 8-17-69, Andrew 8-26-92, Katrina 8-29-05, Betsy 9-5-65 etc), but there have been many other near misses/close calls during my lifetime.    This week we reach the most active 6 weeks with the peak happening around September 10^th.  By the 1^st week in October, upper level winds start to increase taking away the threat to Texas and the northern Gulf Coast shifting it farther to our east.  It’s time to “pay attention”, but the only disturbance NHC is following is another one of those hybrid systems over the central Atlantic.  Long range computer guidance has nothing developing over our part of the world for the next 10-14 days.  They even show the Eastern Pacific going quiet.  What’s going on?  Has to be the unfavorable (sinking air) phase of the MJO.  Let’s hope it hangs around for another 1-2 months!  Stay tuned!