The Drought and Tropics.

 Tropical conditions 

 

It’s been quite some time since I talked about the tropics. It has been very quiet, with only two tropical storms, Arthur and Bertha, which formed in the Gulf earlier this summer. It’s normal for the season to start off slow. But the strengthening El Nino is already having a big impact on the season. As I’ve said before El Nino brings greater wind shear over the Atlantic; typically, the stronger the El Ninos the more disrupting it will be.

 

The SST in the Atlantic Basin are also a big issue. SST in the Gulf are very warm, but that part of the basin has been dealing with very high wind shear.  The Caribbean isn’t as warm as the Gulf. And the Main Development Region (MDR), is quite cool. I talked about the Atlantic Nino in the first El Nino post a couple of weeks ago.  This is going to work hand in hand to suppress tropical cyclone formation in the Atlantic this season.

 

Our total ACE so far this season is only at 2.6 units. There is a lot of dry air and Saharan dust sitting over the Tropical Atlantic..

In the last El Nino post I did, I talked about how the 1982 hurricane season was extremely quiet. 1982 was a very strong El Nino, With the current El Nino looking to be one of, if not the strongest El Nino on the historic record. That is certainly a possibility for the 2026 hurricane season. 

 

We do have a couple of tropical waves over the Atlantic, these are being impacted by the dry air. The dry dusty air should stop any development from these.  The models are having a difficult time with the pattern; some have been indicating development. But the factors I’ve listed along with the MJO in phase 6 heading into phase 7 Isn’t a good phase for tropical activity in the Atlantic.  You really want it in phase 2 and 3. The JMA CHI200 anomalies chart agrees with the MJO and is showing sinking air over the Atlantic. Blue is rising air with increased tropical activity, yellow is sinking air with decreased tropical activity.     If the Atlantic is in the yellow, it doesn’t mean there can’t be tropical cyclones, it just means it is very difficult to get long track systems to approach the CONUS.

 

All of this means the Atlantic is going to continue to sleep for the foreseeable future.

 NOAA has updated their Hurricane Outlook for the rest of the 2026 season.  They have lowered their expectations and expect 7 to 13 named storms, 2 to 6 hurricanes, including 0 to 2 major (Category 3 or stronger) hurricanes this year.  This does bring them down near to the numbers I posted a few months ago.

Drought Outlook. 

The start of August has seen quite a bit of rain across the Middle Atlantic, Southeast New York State into Southern New England, helping improve the drought conditions affecting those parts of the region. But remember the drought monitor only considers rain that fell before Tuesday afternoon.

Extreme drought was erased across Delaware into Maryland. Severe drought was erased from parts of eastern Massachusetts. Moderate drought was removed from Connecticut and contracted in southeastern New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and southwestern New Hampshire. Abnormal dryness eased in parts of southeastern New York, Connecticut, western Rhode Island, and western Massachusetts. However, Western and Northern New York State Across New England has seen less rain that was very hit and miss, which has allowed drought conditions to see some intensification severe drought expanded in southeastern New Hampshire, while moderate drought spread in Maine and abnormal dryness was introduced or increased in coverage in northern Maine, northeastern Vermont, and northern New York.

 

The latest U.S. Drought Monitor released this morning showed 2% of New York State and New England in severe drought, 10% in moderate drought, and 22% as abnormally dry compared to 1%, 15%, and 18%, respectively, last week. 

 

Well that is it....have a great night!