Monitoring Tropical Invest 98L For Development

Watching the tropics

Tropical disturbance Invest98L this morning looking a tad better on visible satellite imagery. You can still see that the system is fighting some shear as the upper-trough remains close by to the west. The eastern side of the system looks better, with fanning of the outflow and thunderstorm tops, while the west side is dealing with the strong wind shear. Over time the system should move away from the wind shear into a better upper-level wind environment, and allow more development as it nears Bermuda. This still could become our next named Tropical Storm of the season, named Chantal. This would only be a shipping threat out over the open Atlantic Ocean this coming week if it develops…continuing to monitor.

Elsewhere, the tropics look to start heating up some if you can believe the global computer forecast models. The GFS and several others, develop a few systems in the central Atlantic moving westward that might affect the Islands of the Caribbean and continue westward. The GFS also wants to develop a closed low in the east-central Gulf of Mexico, but we will have to watch to see if this trend continues and if any other models want to pick it up. Overall, you can see that things are changing some now as we enter the busy part of the normal hurricane season.

Hurricane Chaser Waiting

The tropical weather lull has had me pulling my hair out not having anything to track, per the models and satellite imagery. Outside of intercepting hurricanes to film and document data, tracking them over the open ocean using satellite imagery data is a huge love of mine. Tropical cyclone satellite tracking can be a lot of fun late a night watching a large hurricane out at sea changing it’s structure every hour as it tracks along. Monitoring every wobble in the track, eyewall replacement cycles, and the surrounding environment, bring me some well spent time at the computers. Monitoring all the latest computer model tracks, and watching for trends or big changes in the forecast among the many models to follow adds to the enjoyment too. Maybe soon, (Tropical Storm Chantal) will be out there in the Atlantic giving me something to track as this slow hurricane season so far, has this hurricane chaser needing some tropical action soon.

I can see the emails now….