More August Heat, Tropics Remain Quiet, New Podcast Past History

Gosh, I hate talking about what we get every year at this time.  Growing up, you remember it as "the dog days of August".  Now the general media calls it "extreme, dangerous, or deadly Heat".  Whatever, I won't bore you with what every station is highlighting along with the local National Weather Service Office.

There have been some spotty storms bubbling up during daytime heating, but not everyone saw relief.

The middle radar view was from 2:30 pm, but within an hour it was gone.  Until the upper heat dome shifts farther to our west, look for little daily changes the rest of this week.

But this is mainly a hurricane blog post, and the tropics over the Atlantic remain dead.

The water vapor view clearly shows why.  Upper-level lows are creating wind shear along with strong wind shear.  Add in the Saharan dust, and you can see why it will stay quiet for another week at least.

But even the Tropical Pacific is quiet, with only Lala being a named storm.  My next podcast on Wednesday will focus on the history of our hurricanes.  Why do some years have clusters of storms while other years have nothing in the Gulf?  To watch and hear the podcast, you have to become a subscriber at bobbreck.com.  I thank the hundreds who have already renewed for year 2, with only 2 people choosing to cancel.  The price is right ($2/month), and the information enhances my daily free FB blog.  Come join the crowd to see what you've been missing.  Stay tuned!

Lala Leaving Hawaii, Rest of Tropics Quiet, August Heat Over South

I'm sure many of you weather geeks have been flipping back & forth between The Weather Channel & FOX Weather to see Hurricane Lala batter Hawaii.  She has been downgraded to a Tropical Storm as the main rain bands have diminished.  The eastern slopes of the Big Island received 30-40" of rain, but that is the least populated Island.  Still, watching Jim Cantore in front of a rock slide of boulders that blocked a main highway was impressive.  I thought Brian Norcross did a wonderful job as FOX Weather's hurricane specialist.  We never want to see someone else deal with these storms, but we deserve a break after our recent storms.  

Here we are in the Heart of Hurricane season, and currently Lala is the only named storm worldwide.  That's stunning in a warming climate that was supposed to produce more storms.  Look at the Atlantic.

I've circled an area (yellow) east of Bermuda that has a swirl, but NHC doesn't mention it in their Tropical Weather Outlook.  The Gulf is nearly clear.

So what's going on?  In my podcast this week, I explained the Madden-Julian Oscillation that affects tropical development.  The Atlantic Basin is in phase 6, which is the sinking air phase.  That explains why those early systems coming across the Atlantic fizzled.  But what about the rest of the Planet?  Beats me.  If you want to learn about the MJO, go to bobbreck.com and become a subscriber.  Thanks to the hundreds who have automatically renewed.  If you haven't received a renewal notice, go check your spam folder, as some subscribers have found them there.

Otherwise, I have nothing to talk about except the August heat.  We only have about another 2-3 weeks of these awful 95-100 degree highs before the longer nights of September start to bring some relief to the North Shore.  Until Lake P. starts to cool down, the South Shore will have that Lake effect.

That upper heat dome will slowly shift to our west, allowing for some daytime heating storms to develop.

There are heavy storms bringing much-needed cooling relief to some, but they are slow movers and dumping heavy flooding rainfall too. 

Only one model (GFS) tries to form a storm out in the Atlantic in the 10-14 day time frame.  But that system weakens before it reaches the Islands.  We still have a long time to go before the "Fat Lady" sings, but those cold fronts of October are getting closer!  Stay tuned!