Could it Be...Hello Dolly?

With a huge plume of Saharan dust blowing off of Africa all the way westward into the Caribbean, the main development region (MDR) of the Tropics will be shut down for awhile.

However, NHC is following the system that moved east of the Carolinas several days ago (one they downgraded chances for development) and has become much better organized this afternoon.

Despite being very far to the north and moving farther away from any land, I expect this system to become, at the very least, a sub-tropical depression or a sub-tropical storm shortly.  In fact, just out...NHC is issuing advisories on "Sub-Tropical Depression # 4".  The next name on the list is Dolly, and with all the newer & better satellite technology, I'd be shocked if this is not upgraded to our next Tropical Storm.

Yesterday I talked about our "typical summer pattern" of daily T-Storms.  Well today's rains were not a typical summer pattern.  For one, they were around before daybreak and continued well into the afternoon hours.  The trigger was not daytime heating, but a very complex upper pattern of disturbances that will probably be around much of this week.  The question becomes, where do they form?

Look at Florida today which is mainly rain free.  Could these clusters shift their way for tomorrow?  The challenge during the summer is finding these weak disturbances ahead of time.

Our air mass certainly is "juicy" enough with dew points into the 70s.  Look at what a difference it makes temperature-wise.  Where it's raining & cloudy (Houston) temps are in the 60s while along the Rio Grande it's 100+.   We've enjoyed a break in the heat today and our rain chances tomorrow should stay above our normal 40-50% to perhaps 70-80%.  Again, it all depends where the storm clusters form.  Finally, today was a gloomy day besides the weather.

Another one of my early weather watchers has died.  Dave Doskey might have been # 2 behind Miss Betty from Metairie who passed away several weeks ago,   Dave was a loyal watcher who also loved the weather.   He was my Marrero observer for nearly 4 decades.  R,I,P, my friend. Stay tuned!