Quiet in the Atlantic; 94E in Eastern Pacific Not a Threat to Land

There are no tropical cyclone threat areas in the Atlantic to discuss today, and none of the reliable models for forecasting tropical cyclone genesis are predicting development over the coming five days (as I discussed in a blog post in August 2013, there are three models that have reasonable skill making forecasts of the genesis of new Atlantic tropical cyclones up to four days in advance--the European, GFS, and UKMET models.) Strong upper-level winds, associated with the subtropical jet stream, are bringing high levels of wind shear over the tropical Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, and these high winds are forecast to persist for the remainder of the week. The GFS model predicts that about 8 - 11 days from now the upper level winds over the Western Caribbean will relax and low-level moisture will build, potentially allowing a tropical disturbance with heavy rains to develop there.


Figure 1. Wind shear forecast for 11 am EDT Saturday, June 14, 2014, made by the 06Z UTC June 9, 2014 run of the GFS model. The model predicts low shear less than 6 m/s (12 knots), the two lightest red colors, for the Eastern Pacific. However, in the Atlantic, strong upper level winds associated with the subtropical jet stream are predicted to bring high levels of wind shear in excess of 40 m/s (78 knots), yellow and orange colors, to the tropical Atlantic. Image is from our wundermap with the model layer turned on.

Eastern Pacific disturbance 94E no threat to land
In the Eastern Pacific, a tropical disturbance (94E) located about 150 miles south-southwest of Zihuatanejo, Mexico, is moving west-northwest, parallel to the coast, at about 5 - 10 mph. Satellite loops show that 94E has developed a large area of heavy thunderstorms with cold cloud tops that are showing rotation, and 94E is close to tropical depression status. In their 8 am EDT Tropical Weather Outlook, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) gave 94-E a 90% chance of developing into a depression or a named storm (Cristina) in the next five days. The bulk of 94E's heavy rains are expected to remain offshore of Mexico this week, and our most reliable track models, the GFS and European, show no threat to land this week.

Jeff Masters