The situation in the tropical Atlantic Basin is very ho-hum right now. There are no active tropical cyclones, nor do we expect to see any form for at least another week.
This loop of visible satellite images shows the progression of features of interest across the Atlantic Basin early Friday morning.
Source: University of Wisconsin RealEarth
There are a few tropical waves to track. One is over Central America along 85° west, and another is over the Caribbean Sea near 65° west. Neither wave is producing much thunderstorm activity, and the thunderstorms are disorganized. Another tropical wave, much more robust and with a lot of amplitude, is over the eastern Atlantic along 25° west. However, it's also not causing much thunderstorm activity, and it's embedded in a dry, dusty Saharan air mass.
The reason for the quiet spell is the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO, here's a primer on it if you're new here), which is bringing favorable conditions for widespread thunderstorms and tropical cyclones to the West Pacific right now while bringing conditions that suppress thunderstorms and tropical cyclones to most of the Western Hemisphere tropics. The suppressing conditions will continue for another 10-14 days before the regular eastward progression of the MJO brings more active weather to the tropics in this part of the world.
However, surprises sometimes happen, and the current weather pattern allows for one. A front is becoming stationary along our coast and over the northern Gulf of Mexico. Sometimes, you see a tropical depression or storm spin up along an old decaying front over these areas, though no computer models show this happening over the next week to ten days, so it seems unlikely.
You'll see on the weather satellite view above that there's a large hazy area over the Atlantic Ocean right now. This is dusty air originating from the Saharan Desert. We sometimes see this dusty air reach the southeastern states, and we see colorful sunsets and reduced air quality when this happens. However, the weather pattern favors the dusty air drifting westward and remaining confined to the tropics.
So, we can be thankful for another week or two of continued quiet across the tropics, but it likely turns more active again in August. Usually, the lid comes off the Atlantic tropics in a big way when the MJO becomes more favorable for Atlantic storm activity as we approach the hurricane season's prime time (mid-August to early October). So, it's important to be prepared for storms that could hit us later. If you need prep advice, hurricane.sc is the place to go.
As hoped last week, our weather pattern has changed to one favoring more rain and less heat. One of those "not as hot fronts" has moved into the Southeast and will become stationary nearby to the north over the weekend. So, afternoon and evening showers and thunderstorms will remain widespread through Sunday. It's less than ideal for the rain chances to come on a weekend, but we're desperate for rain right now, so please hold your complaints.
This is the latest Drought Monitor for South Carolina from drought.gov.
The upcoming rains should help but not cure the drought situation across the state. It will take a ton of rain to end the drought, and we don't want to get all that rain at once. Speaking of that, repeated soaking downpours over the next few days can cause isolated flash flooding, something to keep in mind if you're traveling (turn around, don't drown) or live in a flood-prone area. All the clouds and rain will hold our temperatures down; highs across the state will mainly be in the upper 80s and lower 90s.
It looks like the relatively wet weather pattern will continue next week. The old decaying front will still be nearby on Monday, so afternoon and evening thunderstorms should remain widespread. The front should be dissipated by Tuesday, but an upper-level trough will linger over this part of the country, so we continue to see typical summertime pop-up thunderstorms Tuesday through Thursday. The storms might be a little less widespread during this time, and it probably will be a couple of degrees hotter. At the end of next week or maybe next weekend, computer models hint at another front possibly getting this far south, bringing us another period of more widespread diurnal thunderstorms. I hope the models are right!
