august 1st is roughly the date that we hit the climatological ramp to the second week of september. 2004 is heralding the onset of the active part of the atlantic season by giving us a taste of things to come.
tropical depression 1: bobbing near the edge of the ridge now. the surface system is still broad and only the beginnings of a cdo exist. ed had some interesting thoughts on how the depression will behave, posted over on the forum. i'm still holding out on the storm getting over closer to fl/ga and grazing the coast there before moving northward, though nothing in the way of modeling agrees. there is still a negatively tilted slice of ridging to the north and west, staving the effects of the shortwave for now. this may provide an opportunity for the system to camp and meander, while possibly intensifying. if it's already on a terminal run on the carolina coast, baroclinically induced intensification would likely take place. either way this will probably be alex tomorrow. ed still gets the cookie in my book, it formed 31july.
90L: continues to underachieve. now has drifted to a position north of the yucatan, with the same basic structure as two days ago. feeling more hesitant about calling this one a texas threat, much less feeling confident it will develop, though it still surely has the potential. friday night i bet it would finally organize sunday around it's current location... so it had better get started or i'm toast on that call.
elsewhere: nrl may not have picked up on it, but ssd has a 1.0 rating on the wave/potential low racing along near 11/36. it is showing a semicircular arc of convection leading a vortex that is at least at the mid layers.. expect only a wind-shift line at the surface due to it's quick movement. some subsidence to contend with, but fairly smooth sailing ahead.. it should begin to decelerate monday as it nears 50w. considering that it's keeping a low latitude and maintaining/improving in appearance, this is possibly a better candidate for t.d. 2 than 90L is. ssd is calling it 90 for now, which won't fly over at nrl.. so i'll just go ahead and christen it 91L (thats season invest #12). globals are tracking it, just not going crazy about it. gut feeling is that it will be a player next week. i'm sure cycloneye will be giving the most intense analysis of this one in coming days.
eastpac seems to be cooling down some, so our atlantic burst of development/suspicious characters will likely end for a couple weeks. of course systems can always defy mjo's mandate and form/not form when they please, but indications are that we should go into a dry spell until late in the month.
HF 0506z01august