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Post by Sara Ganetis on Oct 3, 2013 21:20:34 GMT
She looks like a mess on satellite (in my non-tropically inclined opinion) but TS Karen is projected to make U.S. landfall by the morning/afternoon on Saturday, 5 Oct. Check out the Resources thread for links to great products and forecasts to keep tabs on the situation. Not too much intensification expected because of the dry environment and shear, right? Karen is making news, as expected. Anything to keep the public's mind off of the whole government shutdown situation... oy vey. NPR Article: Tropical Storm Karen Heading for U.S. Gulf CoastIs this an indication that the tropical season is trying to redeem itself? |
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Post by pmarinescu on Oct 7, 2013 6:38:23 GMT
Doubtful. Does anyone know why this year was such a calm year in terms of Atlantic Tropical Systems?
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Post by Derek Mallia on Oct 7, 2013 17:30:41 GMT
I'm really not a tropical meteorologist, but I recall hearing a lot about dry air coming off of the African Sahara being the big reason for the season's slow start.
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Post by Sara Ganetis on Oct 7, 2013 18:46:12 GMT
We touched on discussing the season as a whole a few weeks ago on this thread. :-) The main players to blame were the anomalously dry air related to the Saharan Air Layer (SAL) and also anomalous westerly shear that subsided towards the start of the month of September. While it was difficult to forecast given the "La Nada" in place which can usually be used as a heads-up for the season, I'm still going to be bold enough to say that this season was a bust with an overestimation of named storms and strong storms by NOAA and CSU. Knock on wood... |
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Post by kgriffin on Oct 8, 2013 16:23:56 GMT
I'm really hesitant for anyone to tie the dry air over the Atlantic to the SAL. While undoubtedly some dry air outbreaks can be attributed to this dust, it's really hard for the Saharan mixed layers (where the dust is) to reach above 500 hPa on even the deepest mixing days over the Sahara. A number of groups have pointed to the anomalous dryness across the MDR and western Atlantic, often up to at least the 400 hPa layer. This would suggest some other source of slightly-less-gentle-than-usual subsidence driving this drying.
Anomalously strong subtropical ridge? Persistent and/or frequent mid-latitude intrusions? Long-lived or abnormally deep cutoffs? Something is mopping up the Atlantic from Vercruz to the shores of Dakar, that's for sure...
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