Clark
(Meteorologist)
Tue May 10 2005 10:58 PM
Re: anyone notice the GOM SST's?

The few models I've looked at are consistent in building in a ridge over the western Caribbean from the west late in the period, e.g. 5-7 days. Anything that gets above 20 N would get destroyed by shear, assuming it were tropical in nature; best bet is still on something non-tropical. But, with warm SSTs and a potentially favorable upper-level wind & vertical shear pattern, you never know. Moisture looks to be sufficient and, as HF noted, the models (to varying degrees) want to spin up something out there...so it bears watching. For those who remember last year's Caribbean system that moved over Hispaniola, as HF noted, that's probably a good situation to compare this to.

Nothing out there really bears watching; shear is just way too high over the entire basin right now. The secluded/occluded low near Bermuda lacks convection and is too far removed from the Gulf Stream to be near warm waters. That is the one location in the basin where shear is low, but that's a feature of the vertically-stacked low pressure system there and not favorable upper-level conditions. It should eventually get kicked out towards the NE and merge with another system in a few days...assuming it lasts that long. None of the globals want to do anything with the upper low over the Carolinas right now; most of them drop it slowly south off of the Georgia/Florida coast and then have it picked up by the subtropical jet. See no reason to think otherwise there right now.

It's kind of a weird pattern out there right now in the mid-latitudes. Alaska has been warm, warm, warm lately -- near 70 in the interior and along the southeast coast for 2+ weeks -- and the associated upper-level ridge that far north has kept things from amplifying to a large degree here. This is partially due to the continual rebuilding of a trough in the western U.S., somewhat akin to a blocking scenario and keeping us from changing things up. The low near Bermuda brought some raw weather to the NE, but nothing out of the ordinary; it hasn't moved because nothing else is there to kick it yet. That should change as the Aleutian high weakens slightly and a system rides over it and drops into the east in about 3 days (first surge offshore). The trough in the east is the culprit which could bring the subtropical jet towards the north in the SE US and result in a more favorable regime in the western Caribbean, but not for about another 5 days (the ridge over the east should build as the trough first amplifies offshore; later, the trough should then amplify to the west)...so it will be interesting to see how it all pans out. Needless to say though, seeing as it's mid-May, I still wouldn't get my hopes up, but it's worth watching.



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