Trop-Storm Chantal Gone, Invest99L & African Wave Next

Tropical Storm Chantal 2007 Satellite Image Off the Northeast U.S. coast July 31, 2007

Tropical Storm Chantal has come and gone, and is now moving over the open North Atlantic Ocean. It was enjoyable for me yesterday to watch her spin off the northeast coast, showing off her exposed low and mid-level circulation as she was being sheared from the south. A nice comma head tropical storm she was, and she at least got one named storm on the July calendar for the 2007 hurricane season.

The Real Season Begins

So, now it’s August 1^st, and the peak of the season is on the horizon, but today is starting out pretty slow with Invest 99 L in the central Atlantic nearing the eastern Caribbean, looking poor with lack of good convection and structure. It all fell apart yesterday, but still has a chance to develop more over the next few days. Some of the computer forecast models continue to develop the system into Tropical Storm Dean in the Caribbean Sea and move it west. As of this writing early this morning, convection has slowly been on the increase in and around the (so-called) weak center. We’ll have to see if this can sustain itself with thunderstorms during the day as it approaches the lower Windward Islands.

The west coast of Africa is also some what active with a decent tropical wave moving off the coast, and more lined up to the east over Africa. A nice little wave-train trying to setup, and with us now into August, the Cape Verde hurricane season is likely to get going more over the coming weeks. It’s been a few seasons with no long-tracked hurricanes moving from the east Atlantic near the Cape Verde Islands to the western Atlantic. These are fun hurricane to track over open ocean, and most of the time they turn north after rounding the base of the central Atlantic ridge, becoming fish storms and bother no one.

So, monitoring Invest 99 L and any signs of any home grown development along the old cold front boundary in the Gulf and off the Mid-Atlantic, and the African tropical wave. I’ll keep you post on any new developments in the tropics.