WLOX Weather Update with Meteorologist Aaron Colby

I all right test test one two three spe well good afternoon and happy Thursday and let's take a look at the tropics now nothing going on right now but you may have seen a lot of buzz on social media about the tropics becoming a lot more active in the coming weeks and we're going to take a a much deeper dive on exactly why is that and exactly why you're you may be seeing that now of course as we approach the peak of hurricane season it's always a good idea to have plan ready but thankfully there are no imminent threats to anywhere in the United States and especially not here on the Gulf Coast so let's take a closer look on exactly what we're seeing out there and here's a quick update on what the tropics look like at the moment now nothing expected over the next 5 to S days of course we always keep an eye out on the central Atlantic now on social media you may have seen a graphic that looks something similar to this an area has been highlighted now exactly what is this and where does it come from well this is the global Tropics hazards Outlook this is produced by Noah's climate Prediction Center and this is usually updated once a week especially uh during Hurricane Season and this usually highlights areas where more or less rainfall is expected if it's a significant departure from normal and of course they will always highlight areas where conditions become favorable for tropical activity now this goes out to about 2 or three weeks so thankfully there's nothing to worry about at the moment but this area that has been highlighted is mainly in about the 2 to 3 we period from now this was published on July 25th so this is already about 2 days old we're going to take a look once again at exactly what some of that means so going forward what exactly can we learn from this well we do have to take a look at what's going on out there right now to learn where this is coming from and here is the satellite image of the entire Atlantic at the moment as you can see not much activity but if you look towards the coast of Africa you can see here that we are tracking multiple tropical waves these waves come off the coast of Africa and become much more frequent as we head into the peak of hurricane season as we head into August and September now these tropical waves do help us a lot during Hurricane Season these are the things that we're watching uh in order to see if there could become any storms named storms as in the near future these tropical waves move across the steering pattern they usually use this high pressure Zone that set settles in the central Atlantic and it will ride that through the Caribbean and sometimes into the Gulf of Mexico once conditions become much more favorable then this is where we can see these tropical waves begin to develop further as they continue to strengthen they can become tropical depressions and then eventually tropical storms and hurricanes now the strength of this high pressure Zone really depends on many different factors mainly wind shear as well as moisture and if that high pressure Zone becomes very strong it's likely that these tropical waves and eventually tropical storms can move further to the West if this St high pressure Zone stays weaker than usual then the it allows the tropical waves to curve a little bit earlier in any tropical storms or hurricanes that form from them will end up moving further north and east so we'll continue to keep an eye on some of those tropical waves but another huge factor that really does develop up during this time of year is the Saharan dust we've had lots of Saharan dust with us over the past several weeks that has really helped suppress the tropical activity down now as you look at the long range forecast models the Saharan dust begins to break up and begins to weaken uh once we get into about a week or two from now this is next Saturday August 3rd and you can see here there's still a lot of dust moving across the Atlantic but the breakes in between each plume is becoming bigger and the plumes themselves are becoming weaker and smaller this usually indicates that the Saharan dust layer as a whole is beginning to weaken and we could begin to see some more tropical activity once that dust layer is completely gone now of course we are approaching the peak of hurricane season you can see right here most of the tropical activity throughout the season happens between August and October and you can see that's where we're at today we are right on the edge of that Peak beginning to go up and you can see approaching August first it really does begin to ramp up this is normally when we do see a spike in tropical activity at least in the past and this is very usually because of that same Saharan dust layer as well as wind shear so historically we take a look at each individual month to see where tropical activity is likely to form and here is July we usually do have this lull in tropical activity mainly because of things like Wier and the Saharan dust layer but then as we move into the month of August things really begin to ramp up and you'll see some similarities here that's that same area that was highlighted by the climate Prediction Center on the previous graphic and you can see that's likely why conditions become much more favorable for tropical activity as we move into August and as you can see here normally in August that is exactly where we begin to see a peak in tropical activity as we go into September the peak of hurricane season you can see it becomes much more active across the Atlantic the east coast and the Gulf Coast with a lot of areas seeing much more frequency of storms through the month of September across almost the entire Atlantic Basin but you can see here that red color that's mainly going to be the driving pattern that's where a lot of storms end up going because of the strength of that high pressure system that we saw on the previous graphic now as we continue to move through some of this uh some of the hurricane season we will continue to keep a very close eye on what could be developing we'll continue to track those tropical waves as they come off of the coast of Africa and of course we do have lots of names left on the list we've had three stor so far two very weak tropical storms that moved into the Gulf of Mexico and of course hurricane Barrel becoming one of the earliest Category 5 storms in history and if you were wondering where these names come from well the Atlantic storm names are chosen by the World Meteorological organization each list repeats every six years and any high impact storms will end up getting the name retired so see that's exactly what's going on of course uh you may see a lot of buzz on social media about these different zones that are highlighted by the climate Prediction Center but thankfully as you've seen here there is no threat at the moment now looking two or three weeks from now we may want to keep an eye on that zone that was highlighted but of course no threats as of right now as we approach the peak of hurricane season it's always a good idea to have your plans ready review your plans and make sure sure that you know what to do if something ends up coming into the Gulf of Mexico or into this area but until then we are currently safe from any storms there is nothing approaching the coast at the moment but of course we'll continue to keep an eye on things right here at WX and be sure to use the WX First Alert weather app to keep updated on the most recent forecasts you can check the radar whenever you need to and you can launch the videos that will appear at the top we have daily videos that will come up as each meteorologist does produce a forecast that will be available there any time tropical activity becomes much more or more likely then we'll begin publishing weather blogs as well as updating more frequently on air and on the web thanks for tuning in and that will be all for today