Please note: The following post is a bit long, but I've tried to keep it 'lite' and interesting, perhaps even entertaining, and especially slated for newcomers and those interested in learning more about the tropical storm formation process. All due apologies to the 'Mets'. And, because the Atlantic / Caribbean is *so* quiet, this might be of more interest for more people than would otherwise be the case. Enjoy!

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Meanwhile! TD-6E is looking *much* more interesting this morning; an altogether different story.

Convection decreased dramatically during the day on Saturday, as is often the case with formative systems during daylight hours, leaving no deep convection near the LLC and with only modest convection, at best, in a sort of ring, well away from the center.

From the NHC's #3 discussion - 800 PM PDT SAT JUL 14 2007 (paraphrased)

"THE DEPRESSION CONSISTS OF A LARGE CIRCULATION DEFINED BY A FEW
CYCLONICALLY CURVED CONVECTIVE BANDS...BUT IT LACKS A CONVECTIVE
INNER CORE ... THE DEPRESSION IS STILL IN ITS FORMATIVE STAGE...WITH CLOUD SWIRLS ROTATING AROUND A HARD TO DISCERN CENTER OF CIRCULATION AS THE CONVECTION CONSOLIDATES AND THE CIRCULATION BECOMES BETTER DEFINED.

THE ENVIRONMENT OF THE CYCLONE IS GENERALLY FAVORABLE FOR DEVELOPMENT...WITH DIVERGENCE ALOFT...LIGHT SHEAR...AND WARM WATERS. HOWEVER...THE CIRCULATION IS STILL ENGAGED WITH THE ITCZ AND THE CONVECTION IS WIDELY DISPERSED. THIS WOULD ARGUE AGAINST RAPID DEVELOPMENT... ALTHOUGH INTERESTINGLY ENOUGH THE SHIPS RI INDEX IS VERY HIGH."

And the #4 discussion, issued 6 hours later at 11pm Hawaii time, the most recent as I write this, pretty much maintains the same scenario:

"THE DEPRESSION CONSISTS OF A LARGE CIRCULATION DEFINED BY A
FEW BANDING FEATURES AND LITTLE CONVECTION NEAR THE CENTER. AN
ENVIRONMENT OF LOW SHEAR AND WARM OCEAN WOULD FAVOR SOME
STRENGTHENING DURING THE NEXT DAY OR TWO.

And then, around Midnight Hawaii time, a deep burst finally did develop near or over the LLC of the depression, totally in line with the 'diurnal convective max', when dewpoints are highest (higher humidity) and 'radiative cooling' at the top of the atmosphere is also highest, which causes strong thunderstorms to more easily develop, for those not familiar with this 'diurnal' (daily) process.

And what was only modest convective banding in the SE and W 'quads' just prior to discussion #4 issuance, rapidly evolved into strong, deep convection, with temps of -80 or colder (very strong thunderstorms!) and spread and wrapped and merged into a well organized band in the SE semi-circle, while drawing ever closer to the LLC center.

To help you visualize this better, please visit the excellent University of Hawaii weather server's IR satellite loop for the past 12 hours. Open in a new window (or tab) and read on!

http://weather.hawaii.edu/satellite/sata...amp;overlay=off

(Remember to click 'Rock', if you desire a forward / backward looping effect.)

In this animated loop, you can also notice a very pronounced strong southerly surge of very moist, cross-equatorial flow between 115W and all the way to the storm itself, pumping in huge amounts of very warm, moist tropical air which fuels the deep thunderstorms and provides a very favorable 'thermodynamic' environment for the storm to grow and thrive.

(PLEASE NOTE: This is now a 'Time Expired' 12-hour IR loop from UH's weather server, and no longer illustrates exactly what I was describing above. This link only shows the *most recent* 12 hours of loop. Will research into how to 'preserve' the time segment 'of interest' for future postings.)

Additionally, a new, tight band is now forming in the NW quad, closer and tighter to the center of this developing storm, all the while the strong thunderstorm very near the LLC is building, pulsing and expanding, too.

If this trend continues, I can well imagine a CDO (Central Dense Overcast) feature developing over the LLC later today, which tends to foster further intensification (correct me if I'm wrong, Mets).

And, finally (whew!), in the last few frames of the animated IR loop, (as I write this 5am Hawaii time, 11am Florida time), an even tighter convective band is forming, even closer to the center, and the central 'ball' of convection is flaring up again, with temps -85 or colder, and the overall banding drawing ever closer and more 'tightly wound'. Sure looks like Tropical Storm status is imminent. If this does occur, it will be named "Cosme".

Perhaps most interesting of all, is that there now appears to be some 'binary interaction' beginning to occur between fizzling TD-5E to the NE, and this much larger, much more organized system. One can see in the last few frames from the animated IR loop (link provided above) that the remaining deep convection from TD-5E is making a 'bee-line' towards TD-6E, apparently being drawn in towards the much larger circulation.

I'll speculate on possible 'binary interaction scenarios' in my next post, later today sometime. And I'm sure we'll get NHC's 'take' on this in their next advisory, as well.

Finally, I've attached (click attachment at top of the post) a nice QuikScat satellite image of TD-6E, taken around 4pm Hawaii time (10pm Florida time), Saturday, which shows, quite nicely, the surge of very moist air I mentioned earlier, flowing into the storm from the south and you can very well see, too, that the banding feature in the SE quad (the strongest 'moderate' thunderstorms at picture time, before the deepening trends in the overnight hours) contains the strongest winds, associated with the deepest convection. Ah, QuikScat, how I've come to love you!

Apologies, again, to some of you, for this rather long-ish post. But, since there's nothing really of interest currently in the Atlantic basin, I thought I'd share with you this rather interesting cyclogenesis process in the Eastern Pacific and what could become even more interesting if significant strengthening does happen and the 'binary' interaction with TD-5E does occur over the next few days. We shall see! More later.