JB is back and tomorrow he'll be updating his hurricane forecast, both in writing and on video. woo-hoo!

Here's a snippet of what he said today:

"The guts of the tropical wave over Central America has worked its way into the Pacific, but a tongue extends northward into the Gulf. In the meantime, the front has gotten so far south into Texas that the normal cranking south to southeast flow as been interrupted. The point is the western Gulf will have to be watched over the next several days until some semblance of normalcy returns. What is most important now is the abnormally pumped up amount of water around with a front in there and a low-level south-southeast connection feeding in will lead to enough rain in some places near the Texas Gulf coast that would make a tropical storm jealous. Whether it can feed back in the coastal waters and start some kind of hybrid development is right now a secondary point compared to the threat of rainfall in the area this front is in, where amounts may reach 10-15 inches by Saturday for some."

He also went off on a rant about the SOI being so strongly negative, hinting that we could "technically" be in an El Nino situation. Tomorrow he will elaborate more but "Suppose an El Nino evolves and "holds down" the season as was portrayed in some circles. But this time, the two category 4 hurricanes within three days of land on the forecast do hold together and hit. Would an El Nino have held down the season? I say this because the current 90-day SOI is -5, and technically that means we are in an El Nino situation in the Tahiti-Darwin area."

The tropics may be quiet but JB's sure heating up.

Peace & Cheers,

LI Phil