You all know from my avatar that I am in Texas. It's been one very weird year here, as I am sure most everyone here also knows. Most of the state is running way, way above average in the rain bucket, and ran well-below average for overall summer 07 temps. Two landfalling hurricanes out this way also set records (Lorenzo: Lorenzo tied the record in the Atlantic for quickest ramp-up from a tropical depression to hurricane, done within just 12 hours.. and Humberto: fastest ramp-up from first advisory to hurricane, possibly a world record for being so close to land, and an Atlantic record regardless.. completed in about 14 hours...) In addition to these record-setting west GOM hurricanes, a Tropical Storm, Erin, made some waves when she intensified just a little bit into landfall, but really got a second wind going while fully inland... resulting in deadly flash flooding in San Antonio, to then carry those torrents northward up into Oklahoma. This was a trend that appears to me to have started back in 2006, but clearly took off like a bat out of you know where, this year.

Back in 2006 Texas witnessed several borderline-tropical cyclones form right along shore. Without digging up all of my old entries and notes, one was an Invest 98L that, for all intents and purposes, really was a lopsided tropical cyclone, with the LLC just inland most of the time, and with winds sustained upwards of 50 mph just offshore. Another received honorable mention from NHC after the fact for being "very close" to pulling it off, even though I do not believe there was as much as an Invest tag up on it in real-time. Yet others made for copious core rains primarily right along the coastline, resulting in some daily records and national headline-grabbing stories, like the one where 14" fell in just 24 hours around Corpus.

So, some kind of regional trend has clearly been in place since 06, which is really nothing more than a segue into discussing Invest 90L a little more. 90 is probably looking at coming ashore within just 12-24 hours, baring an unexpected drift along the coastline or something else even less expected. Here again we have another invest in the face of very dry air and some residual shear actually firing off some deeper convective bursts today. For the past 72 hours or so 90L has had good form at and near the surface, but little or no deep convection. What 90L lacked in convection it had in lower atmospheric pressure and wind. Now it has given up its grip on the lower pressures and stronger winds, but, as mentioned, has increased its deeper convection. (See below)

Another one of those many half-baked systems here along the Texas coast, indeed. The $64k question is whether or not it can now pull off a Lorenzo, Humberto, or Erin before coming ashore, or end up something more like these other ones that have teased Texas with earning a name since hurricane season 06. I don't even feel like speculating much on that prospect at this point. This season has been just too weird in general, and just plain bizarre out here in Texas.

Looks like the bizarre is even spilling back out into the rest of the western Atlantic, this week. When is the last time you recall seeing NHC identify six marginal features in a TWO? (See below)

While on the subject of bizarre tropics ... wait, isn't that just what the entire 2007 season has been? Well, back on to the subject of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season then! When is the last time you recall seeing Cape Verde storms fizzle out in the middle of the Atlantic during September.. you know, in the heart of "Cape Verde Season"? Ingrid, Karen, Melissa... DOA... not even to recurve and fish-out as any respectable Cape Verde hurricane. 2007: Third Place for most named subtropical storms in any given season. 2007: Thirteen named storms by October, including two record-setting Cat 5s, and yet so far the lowest ACE since 1997. What next?