Nouska

Finally worked out how to do it. GFS 06Z having fun and games with invest 90L and goes stir crazy with activity in the Atlantic.

I think so and MJO phase is currently not the best for Atlantic basin activity. I think anything that made TD status has been named so it's not that they faded, just very little activity till now. Six named systems with two out of season may also skew the perspective. Earl was a long tracker but, typical of recent years, couldn't stack and competing vortices till land interaction both weakened and stacked. This is the classic time of year for the long track Cape Verde systems and we may have a nice one to look at this coming week - models are all over 90L this morning. The big three below at day 6. The models all downgrading Florida threat but it's while away - keep looking!

For this year, a more definite La Nina was expected by this stage - considered to be more favourable for development. Looks like invest 99 potential is being downgraded and focus now on the pouch (future 90L) about to emerge. Unusual to see the NHC so bullish about a system this early. http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gtwo.php?basin=atlc&fdays=2 2. A tropical wave located inland over western Africa is producing a large area of cloudiness and thunderstorms. This wave is expected to move offshore tonight and environmental conditions appear conducive for gradual development while it moves generally west-northwestward over the eastern tropical Atlantic Ocean during the next several days. * Formation chance through 48 hours...low...10 percent * Formation chance through 5 days...medium...50 percent Forecaster Cangialosi The 168 charts from ECM and UKMO - quite a lot going on - just need to wait for the models to sort it all out. http://ruc.noaa.gov/hfip/tcgen/

Definitely not greenfinch with the yellow bar across the wing rather than along the edge. I would also opt for siskin. PS, totally agree about heather burning - many a time I remember the 'controlled' burn running away and the men spending many long hours fire beating to get under control. God knows the loss of all kinds of wildlife just to get a few brace on London tables on the not so glorious twelth!

The 12Z ECM does nothing with it - open wave on a very southerly path. ECM does develop the wave behind and goes fishing with a tropical storm in late run. Latest satellite. Fiona is the little storm to the NW. Good sense of broad circulation - potential for a big storm if it does develop per GFS

I had hoped we had moved forward from the time of these guys. My great grandfather is one of them.

Invest 99L - GFS 06Z run. That would be a huge boost to the Atlantic basin ACE (accumulated cyclone energy) and a worrying time for forecasters! An edit for the 12Z .... into Gulf of Mexico on this run! It will keep folk on their toes for a few days.

This big girl set up shop yesterday. She's got a moth overnight.

That's one whopper of a positive AO for August ...... .... must look back the 'compare year' feature in the Meteociel archives - they now go back to 1871! http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/archives/archives.php?day=17&month=8&hour=12&map=4&mode=1&type=ncep&region=

NHC now issuing advisories on tropical storm Fiona (can someone change title please). TROPICAL CYCLONE GUIDANCE MESSAGE NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL 1846 UTC WED AUG 17 2016 DISCLAIMER...NUMERICAL MODELS ARE SUBJECT TO LARGE ERRORS. PLEASE REFER TO NHC OFFICIAL FORECASTS FOR TROPICAL CYCLONE AND SUBTROPICAL CYCLONE INFORMATION. ATLANTIC OBJECTIVE AIDS FOR TROPICAL CYCLONE FIONA (AL062016) 20160817 1800 UTC Looking better this evening now that convection has fired again. Still a bit further south than the models had initially suggested and there is still a bit of divergence between the GFS and ECM as a tweet from JB (Weatherbell) indicates.

A couple of screen grabs from https://twitter.com/splillo Still racing beyond the norm - anybody with better eyesight work out the other years with spikes. AGU Fall meeting schedule for .... The dynamical processes of stratosphere-troposphere interactions and their relationship with climate. Looks to be some interesting new presentations on the menu. https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm16/preliminaryview.cgi/Session13040

Wavy Gravy ..... the NOAA ENSO blog always pick such cute titles. What did one ocean say to the other? Nothing, it just waved. If you look at the map of one-week average sea surface temperature, you may have noticed an interesting feature along the eastern and central equatorial Pacific: a series of waves along the edge of the “cold tongue”. The cold tongue (that term always gives me the heebie-jeebies) is a narrow strip of cooler water right along the Equator that’s present during neutral and La Niña conditions, and is strongest between July and November. It comes from deep ocean water that rises up near the South American coast, and is then spread westward by surface currents. El Niño’s warming reduces the cold tongue. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/august-2016-enso-update-wavy-gravy

That's quite a vigorous low latitude, for time of year, jet stream being shown on the ECM at 96. IMO unusual to see the procession of strong lows coming in from the SW as is being modelled in the next 8 days. Now there's a blocked Atlantic showing at day 10 and maybe a couple of tropical cyclones in the mix.

Signs of life ,day seven, in the MDR from tonights ECM. Presumably this is pouch 71L on the Montgomery group page. Links ... http://ruc.noaa.gov/hfip/tcgen/ http://www.met.nps.edu/~mtmontgo/storms2016-atlantic.html

Glad to see it take a French vacation (though the Brit tourists might not) - desperately needing rain now. An edit for @stainesbloke The taps turned off from the middle of June.

I did raise an eyebrow at the UKMO 168 hour chart last night - almost identical to what the ECM had this morning. The MF app has a lot of rain at day 7 so maybe their modelling is similar. 00Z runs from ECM and UKMO

You'll be pleased to know the CESM model thinks so too..... http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/NMME/current/NCAR_CESMtmp2m.html http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/models/

Mercator site projection for ice loss in the next six days. Now 19th http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/ Nice animation of the forecast. http://globalweatherlogistics.com/seaiceforecasting/gfs.850mb.height.vort.atlantic.html

Thanks for the very detailed responses - just another of the tiny cogs in the big wheel of atmosphere circulation.

The ECM cloud cover for 18Z Saturday looks a little better. @Scorcher You'll get the ECM 6 hourly time steps you like on the IMO weather page - limited view and limited parameters but better than nothing. http://en.vedur.is/weather/forecasts/atlantic/ An edit to add the ARP cloud for same time, this shows the different cloud levels. http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/arpege.php?ech=3&mode=38&map=330

Interesting topic and something I noticed last year with the very hot summer in Europe. I remember speculating on the timing of the next plume, based on the observed periodicities in the preceding months. Being as it was rare for the heat to get into Britain last summer, I attach the temperature graph for my location. You can see the regular spikes from March onwards but why were they so regular? Fewer days than a moon cycle and not precisely coinciding with full moon. @Roger J Smith you have done a lot of work on this subject, any thoughts?

Maybe Paul is anticipating all the moans about how hot it is and people not able to sleep etc etc...

Earl exits into the EPAC and morphs into Javier. Nice one UKMO!

Thanks @Captain Shortwave Looking at the projected MJO from the models you mention, we can see where the differences are being initiated. ECM stays in phase 5 while GFS goes for amplification into phase 6. Below the phase composites for August and the Z500 anomalies at T+240 hours. Both anomaly charts reflect well what they are doing with the tropical forcing - just need to wait a day or two for signal agreement but either way, it looks like a reasonable way to see August out.

The UKMO is still bullish with TC genesis in the NE of GoM. Most show area of vorticity but no other model develops strong storm as suggested here at day four. http://ruc.noaa.gov/hfip/tcgen/2016/2016080500/ukm2.2016080912.108.lant.troplant.prp.fcst.gentracker.png