Pacific Is Going Crazy...

It should come as no surprise with the MJO being in the Favorable (rising air) phase over the Eastern Pacific, that tropical activity is off the charts.  Hurricane Hector is a powerful Cat. 4 but should stay far enough south of the big Island of Hawaii with only minor impacts.  Hurricane John & Tropical Storm Ileana are doing a dance off the coast of Mexico with another system showing signs of development farther to their west.   In our part of the World, the MJO is in the unfavorable (sinking air) phase and nothing is happening…except the upper swirl way out in the central Atlantic.   It will be no threat to land and before the satellite era, it would not even be discovered.,   We could stay with the unfavorable MJO through August, but I doubt we’ll make it all the way through September in that phase.   Right now, all looks fine for the next 7-10 days and longer.

 

Locally, there is a small upper swirl over Natchez that was over Memphis last night.  It is expected to sink into the northern Gulf tomorrow before dissipating.  Without a large upper high over us, I expect more T-Storms to develop during daytime heating and that pattern should hang around into the weekend.  Some of these storms can bring 1-2+” of rain in less than an hour along with wind gusts to 40+.   It’s called basic August.

 

The network newscasts are all gaga over the extreme heat in the Northeast.  I looked at the temps and found them to be what should be happening in August.  It’s called Summer!   Out west, all of the fires are caused by man made climate change as the AGW Alarmists say.  However, I read an article that indicated 80+% of wildfires are started by human error (stupidity) and not by nature (lightning).  In addition, the article stated that during the last 50+ years, people have built homes higher & higher up mountain sides/hills where in the past, the fires would have just burned vegetation & not homes.  But never let facts get in the way of a “good” story.   The reason that the fires are so bad this summer is due to the plentiful winter rains that allowed vegetation(fuel)  to grow.  It’s a scary scene to watch as the fires race up hillsides faster than a person can run.  Personally, I’ll take our hurricane threat as we know they are coming days in advance, plus we can outrun (drive)  them.  Stay tuned!