In newsletters last week, we previewed the possibility of an active eastern Pacific seeding an uptick in storminess across the western Caribbean or southern Gulf later this week.
In particular, we were following trends from a developing system on the Pacific side of Central America – an area tagged for development east of newly-minted Tropical Storm Boris – pinwheeling into the Gulf toward this weekend, where models indicated it could play into some slow organization.
The good news is forecast models since last Friday have shifted the low-pressure signal much closer to Central America and southern Mexico for the coming days and backed off on the potential for organization due to both proximity to land and less conducive upper-level conditions that might otherwise support organization.
So despite the stormy side of the Madden-Julian Oscillation or MJO and its fast-moving Kelvin wave counterpart progressing through the Atlantic basin this week – a configuration of upper-level winds that can promote tropical development – there doesn’t appear to be enough dry kindling this go around to eke out organized activity on our side of the tropics.
Even without organized tropical activity, the influx of soupy tropical air into the Gulf, especially east of the low-pressure area in the southern Gulf, will enhance rainfall chances by the latter part of the week into the weekend for parts of the Florida peninsula, especially here in South Florida.
El Niño cranking up
Though not officially declared by NOAA yet, El Niño conditions are for all intent and purposes here and will only strengthen through summer and into the fall. The abnormally warm waters of the eastern equatorial Pacific that define El Niño surged over the past week, with daily waters temperatures in the main El Nino monitoring region reaching 1.5°C above average.
In general, when water temperatures in this region top 0.5°C above average for a consecutive 3-month period, El Niño conditions are present. We’re very near this threshold, even with NOAA’s revised index that removes the influence of global warming and other factors, and El Niño should be declared sooner rather than later at this rate.
More on El Niño and its influence on the Atlantic hurricane season in the tomorrow’s newsletter.
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