Ramblings of a Graduate Student

Well, I’ve made it to day 200; that’s 200 consecutive days of blogging. I should get a gold star or a cookie or something, right?!?

Anyways, a relatively quiet weather pattern persists across the United States tonight. A large, subtropical ridge is located across the southern United States, helping to keep the heat locked in place across the southern half of the US. To the north of this ridge, mid-level flow is a bit stronger on the periphery of the ridge. Embedded within this stronger flow, several minor shortwave troughs are racing through the flow, helping to initiate daily bouts of convection acorss Nebraska and Iowa. This convection then develops into an MCS overnight and pushes eastward and/or southward during the subsequent day.

However, I wanted to turn attention toward the tropics. A large upper-level trough is moving through the Gulf of Mexico currently; it looks like a giant “6″ in the water vapor image above. This upper-level trough is increasing shear throughout the Gulf of Mexico, which will help inhibit any tropical storm development in the near term.

Turning attention toward the Puerto Rico area, a large area of tropical showers and thunderstorms are ongoing just north of the island. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) currently gives this tropical wave a 20% chance of developing into a tropical depression/storm during the next 48 hours. This is partly the result of strong shear co-located with the tropical wave, owing to the mid-level low currently located just to the north and east of the tropical wave. Model forecasts show the shear weakening atop the tropical wave in the coming days, which will give the tropical wave a chance to develop into a tropical depression/storm, just about the time the wave moves into the Gulf of Mexico. It’s still a long ways off, but certainly is of more concern than anything else over the last week or two.