The pattern is finally changing across the US, but it's not going to one to enhance the potential for tropical formation in our basin. It's that time of year where we get deep troughs entering the Gulf of Alaska, sitting and spinning for a couple of days, then moving SE toward British Columbia/Washington as much weaker systems. We tend to see a lot of cut-off lows near southern California in this type of regime: one forming, getting ejected into the midlatitude pattern again about 3-5 days later, and another one taking it's place. We've got a similar setup now, with a cut-off low that appears primed to eject into California off of the west coast right now.
In our basin, that's translating to a trough just off of the east coast with a reinforcing shortwave behind it. An upper-ridge, which previously was fairly stationary and better defined, is located near western Cuba. There's a lot of really dry air and mid-level shear associated with this wave, squelching any activity. Everything east of 50W is done; despite what we have seen this year so far, I am pretty confident in saying that we're not going to see anything out there for the rest of the season. The most favorable region right now is the extreme SW Caribbean just north of Panama, where Beta formed, but this favorable region is confined so close to land that it's going to take the ridge sliding a bit back toward the north and a shortwave north of Puerto Rico lifting out to get something going.
Potential for a hybrid or subtropical-tropical conversion system always needs to be watched this time of year, but we're probably quiet for at least another 3 days overall...and potentially longer. Models are picking up on something in the Caribbean later on into the weekend, but all of them have it at the end of/connecting with a frontal boundary in the central Caribbean except for the GFS. Not sold on the tropical nature/organization of what may form yet, nor am I sold on something actually getting going there. Nevertheless, it is still the 2005 hurricane season...if we thought anything could happen last year, we've really seen that this year.
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