Thursday's outlooks had a fifth area that has fallen by the wayside. With all these possibilities, you'd think we would be about to have the Atlantic become infested with named storms. However, the truth is that we're just scraping the bottom of the barrel. Unfavorable development conditions are still present over most of the Atlantic Basin. However, it's September, the peak of hurricane season, and climatology screams at us to monitor every little swirl and tropical wave closely.
What was probably our best chance at a tropical cyclone development currently spins east of Ocean City, Maryland; it's area 2 on the graphic above. I use the past tense because this non-tropical area of low pressure is starting to drift northeastward toward colder waters. Screaming southwest winds aloft have caused too much vertical wind shear for this feature to develop into a tropical cyclone, and that is likely to continue until this feature is over waters too cold to support further development. Over the last two days, it's been churning up the Atlantic and contributing to the rough surf and bumpy boating conditions on our coastal waters. These effects should lessen starting Saturday as the low moves further away.
Disturbance 1 is another area that will have some effects in South Carolina. Moisture from this weak area of low pressure off the upper Texas coast will get shunted northeastward by an upper trough and cold front that will push through the eastern part of the nation tonight and Saturday. This will bring some rain to much of the state, and it's needed. It may sound strange saying that after all the rain that Debby left here, but some areas (my backyard is one of them) have had little to no rain since Debby moved away. So, it's been quite dry for nearly a month, and we're back to needing rain again. I'll have more on our rain chances over the next week below.
This loop of visible satellite imagery from this morning shows the four features of interest across the Atlantic Basin today. I have also highlighted the fifth disturbance from Thursday's NHC outlooks, no longer a concern for development.
Disturbance 3 is a tropical wave generating thunderstorms over the Yucatan Peninsula and farther south into Central America today. It looks like this feature will get stuck over the Bay of Campeche in the coming days. There is a long shot for this to combine with the part of the feature to the north that will get left behind over the Gulf of Mexico and become a tropical cyclone next week. Don't hold your breath, though; it will take until midweek for this process to run its course (if the process ever runs its course).
Finally, we have Disturbance 4 over the middle of the Tropical Atlantic. It's a tropical wave causing a disorganized cluster of thunderstorms east of the Lesser Antilles. Nothing will come out of this area in the short term as it's in an area of widespread sinking air associated with the Madden-Julian Oscillation (more on the MJO if you're new here). It appears that this area of sinking air will diminish and drift to the east over Africa in the coming days, leading to a less unfavorable or neutral situation concerning the MJO next week. So, by the middle of next week, there's a chance we'll see signs of life in this part of the Atlantic again.
The hurricane season hasn't been as active as we expected so far, but remember that it's only halftime. There is a lot of time left to play, so stay in the game and be ready for storms that could affect us in the coming weeks. If you need prep advice, visit hurricane.sc.
As I mentioned above, most of South Carolina is returning to Kalahari-like conditions since only a small part of the state has seen significant rain since Debby moved away. Only a small area along our border with Vinegar Sauce Land has seen significant rain.
This plot shows rainfall across South Carolina over the last two weeks ending at 8 a.m. EDT today, expressed as a percent of normal. Note all the zeroes and single-digit values between the I-20 Corridor and the coast.
Parts of the state will see some needed rain over the weekend from the setup outlined above, as moisture gets shunted in from the Gulf of Mexico through Saturday. However, only the Lowcountry will see substantial rain, locally over an inch, and it looks like the Upstate will miss out on the rain entirely. Coastal areas could see some lingering shower activity on Sunday as this front becomes stationary not far offshore, but most of the state will be dry.
After that, high pressure to the north takes over again, keeping us mostly dry next week. Easterly winds around the high might send some light shower activity into our coastal areas, but that's about it for rain chances until the end of next week. At least temperatures and humidity levels will remain below average, so it will remain more comfortable than we usually experience in September.
It looks like our next good chance for rain will come toward the end of next week, which may involve a tropical weather feature pushing northward through the Gulf of Mexico. Hopefully, it will be a rain maker and nothing more than that.
