not a bad post title. think i'll borrow it.
everything of interest in the atlantic is getting better organized this evening. aside from alex only 91L is on the verge of development at this point. rather than recap i'll add my spin to the mix.
alex is getting better organized, plain and simple. taking into account that shear is decreasing and the storm is over the gulf stream, this makes plenty of sense. so now it has an intact cdo, which means alex will probably not remain dinky and laughable for too much longer. the nhc is sticking to their near/just offshore track while backpedaling on the timetable, as the storm continues to wobble around in place (actually drifted south some today). with the increased organization and the fact that conditions will continue to improve, i expect alex to be knocking on hurricane strength by tomorrow afternoon. it may do some emergency ridge-pumping as that shortwave moves in, and have to jerk left around it.. maybe come ashore monday night or tuesday just a little. just a thought, since some of the others have worked.
91L, as mentioned continues to draw looks. ssd had it as 1.0 earlier, now it's back to TW.. but the scant convection earlier is more robust tonight. there's even a reverse arc to the thunderstorm exhaust that suggests outflow. while it's speed suggests that only a mid-level vorticity max and surface hairpin in the trades exist, it is slowly decelerating. the arc of convection north/west of the vortmax and along the itcz suggest it means business. at around 11N it has the sort of trajectory that would spell trouble for the islands, and the globals are slowing it down (still not calling for much development though). model support or no, if this system were moving at 15mph it would probably be a depression, and it should have slowed to near there by tuesday.. it has good chances of being t.d. 2.
behind 91L is another, system, and invest not yet dubbed. gfs has been making a fish spinner out of this for almost a week.. and it's come off looking good. all those phantom systems we were mentioning last week coming out into the MDR are insisting they are real.
old 90L remnants have a weak hook of convection but nothing going for it. away east is diffluence-generated convection that is sort of trained into alex. doubt the degree of separation exists for that to do anything.
heed the mid-level system near 23/57 following the periphery of the ridge. it's one of those shortwave fragments that loop around the ridges and sometimes start stuff. globals have seen it for days and made it look interesting. a watcher at least.
odd sidenote.. td six is coming back to life in the eastpac.
the developing pattern in the eastern u.s. is one that will close the east coast to the tropics late week through next weekend, but then leave it wide open into the following week. that's if consecutive gfs runs are telling the truth about the behavior of the longwaves extending from the arctic.
if we get MDR development it will be interesting times ahead.
HF 0349z02august