Igor forms; SW Atlantic Basin getting ready to light up

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Well I think I have found a way to try to do some updates in the mornings again. This week I'll be really settling into my class schedule so I hope to have time to do these as part of my routine. I can't promise that I'll be able to put these up every day, but I will try.

The Atlantic is fairly quiet since Hermine moved ashore dumping large amounts of rain on Texas, but we have a brand new tropical storm in the far eastern Atlantic, Tropical Storm Igor, centered just southeast of the Cape Verde Islands. This is one of the more intimidating names on the storm list this year, and I think he has a good chance to live up to his name and become a major hurricane down the road. He should have less problems with dry air than Danielle and Earl did, as he has a nice large tropical wave out in front that is bringing a potent moisture burst into the Atlantic.

The models will be jumping around trying to recurve Igor into a weakness in the central Atlantic in about 10 days. There is room for a lot of change to this idea as the pattern is very dynamic, and a lot of models are showing drastically different things from run to run, indicating the uncertainty in this kind of pattern. The European and GFS both show another storm developing behind Igor in a few days and try to recurve it early. What could be interesting is if the storm behind Igor does recurve early, amplifies the trough into the eastern Atlantic, and pumps the ridge to the west which would prevent Igor from turning out as soon. This is speculation for now as it is a long way out, but I am still very concerned that the pattern this year may allow at least one of these Cape Verde storms to come all the way across and hit the United States.

The ECMWF has been fairly consistent on developing a storm in the Caribbean in 8-10 days as heat builds up and pressures lower in the SW Atlantic Basin. It is about time for this area of the Atlantic to get going. The Caribbean has seen nothing since Alex at the very beginning of the season. The models are starting to see the upward motion shift west towards the Caribbean after being focused over Africa during the Cape Verde storm burst, and this makes good sense given that the Cape Verde season typically starts to slow down during the 2nd half of September. August is the most active month for the eastern Atlantic climatologically, and once that area starts to shut down for the year, the activity is just going to shift west into the SW Atlantic Basin where storms are very likely to threaten land. We've already had Hermine as a warning shot that things will start to get active over there.

Just because most of our storms have been of Cape Verde origin this year doesn't mean that the season will end when the eastern Atlantic shuts down. The activity will simply shift west, and that's why the U.S. should still be very concerned about potential landfalls in the 2nd half of September and October. The Gulf of Mexico is a hot spot and deceptively favorable for storms that could get in there. Bonnie and a couple of TDs have made it seem like it's been unfavorable, but in reality it has been very favorable on average, but no storms have gotten in there to take advantage of it. We saw how fast Hermine tried to ramp up. It is not something to take lightly. I still expect a few more storms to hit the United States before the season is over.

We shall see what happens!

Tropical Storm Igor Track Models: