Dry air, wind shear to limit tropical development

AccuWeather

Now is a great time for a cruise, as there are hardly any thunderstorms across the Atlantic Basin. Alex DaSilva explains why there is little development currently in the Atlantic.

Transcript

00:00Joining me right now is AccuWeather expert Alex DeSilva.

00:03And Alex, really, when you take a look at the hurricane season, listen, it's six months

00:07in length, and oftentimes we see early season development, but there usually is a period

00:13of what we would say rest in the Atlantic Basin, and we're certainly seeing that right

00:18now.

00:19We call it the doldrums, and yeah, this is the time of the year where it happens.

00:23Usually June and July into the beginning of August is when this typically happens.

00:28Now this is a great time if you're going to be going out on a cruise right now.

00:32Hardly any thunderstorms across most of the Atlantic Basin.

00:34You can see a couple of tropical waves that have moved off of Africa, making their way

00:38west, but I really don't think these things are going to be able to develop.

00:41It's just too harsh of an environment right now across the Atlantic.

00:45Yeah, when we talk about development, let's take a look at what we look for.

00:50I think a lot of people are familiar with, number one, warm water, but you also want

00:55low wind shear, light winds aloft to help thunderstorms get better organized, and certainly

01:01you do not want any dry air.

01:04Let's start with the water temperatures, though, because this has been the one constant.

01:08The water temperature anomalies, it has been very warm across the main development region

01:13of the Atlantic.

01:14Yeah, there's been no problem here in terms of water temperatures and ocean heat content,

01:18which essentially is the depth of the warm water.

01:21So these are at near record levels across most of the Atlantic Basin right now.

01:24Again, this is why I think we saw Barrel really explode in the eastern Caribbean here.

01:30So yeah, the water temperatures are not the problem.

01:32I think what we're seeing is a lot of dry air and a lot of shear across the Atlantic

01:36Basin.

01:37You can see the shear product here.

01:38All that deep purple is indicating a lot of shear across the Atlantic Basin right now,

01:42especially once you get a little bit closer to the Caribbean and north of the Caribbean

01:46right now.

01:47So I think that is one of the major inhibiting factors right now for development.

01:51Yeah, and even if you can get some of these tropical waves to not, or let's say, get into

01:56those areas of less wind shear, you have another problem.

02:00You do.

02:01And you can see here all this dark color, all this yellow, all this orange, all of this

02:05is dry air, essentially.

02:07You can see it's coming off of Africa, making its way all the way across the Atlantic Basin.

02:11We're even seeing reports of dust in Florida, you know, blocking out some of the sun, creating

02:15some nice sunsets.

02:17But again, this is what inhibits tropical development, essentially chokes off the system.

02:21Tropical systems love warm, moist environments, and when you take away that moisture, it's

02:26very hard for them to develop.

02:28So even if we had very little to no wind shear, if the environment for these tropical systems

02:33is too dry, you're probably not going to see development regardless.

02:37Yeah, and this is a good time to remind people, even though we're in the doldrums, the pause

02:43in tropical development, once this dry air goes away, and it almost always does, by the

02:48time we get in the mid to late August, things can turn on a dime.

02:52Yeah, it can be like flipping a switch.

02:54We're only about 10% of the tropical season, the way through the tropical season.

02:59We have about 90% of the tropical activity left in the tropical season, so things typically

03:04ramp up fairly quickly when we head into the month of August, especially during the second

03:08half.

03:09Now, looking at things a little bit in the longer term right now, it does look like some

03:12of that wind shear and some of that dry air will begin to wane as we go into August.

03:18However, I do think for the rest of the month of July, I really don't see really much tropical

03:22activity.

03:23Acuweather lead hurricane expert, Alex DaSilva.

03:26Alex, thanks for joining us.

03:28It's going to be a busy, busy season.

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