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| The Atlantic Ocean suddenly blossomed with tropical storms and potential storms over the weekend. |
Also as expected, there's widespread flooding, mudslides, road washouts, fallen trees and power outages. Unexpectedly, a 5.1 earthquake centered under Ojai, California shook the Los Angeles area. Luckily, the earthquake did not add much to the extensive damage from Hilary.
Sone of the worst or most disruptive damage I saw was that both lanes of heavily traveled Interstate 10 near Palm Springs, California was washed out. Traffic was backed up for miles and miles, and it looked like on video a few cars got caught up in in the flooding and mud flows.
While all eyes were on Hilary, the Atlantic Ocean suddenly blew up with tropical storms. Three tropical storms - Emily, Franklin and Gert quickly formed in the Atlantic tropics and a fourth tropical storm seems set to form as early as today in the Gulf of Mexico.
There's two opposing factors acting in the Atlantic right now. One of them encourages tropical storms, the other discourages them from getting powerful.
The Atlantic Ocean waters overall are at record high temperatures right now. Tropical storms and hurricanes thrive on warm water - the warmer the better. That toasty water makes it easier for tropical storms to form, so that's a large reason why we suddenly have so many.
The opposing factors is El Nino. That's a periodic warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean that's well under way right now. It's expected to continue for several months at least. El Nino tends to drive up the world's temperatures. Combined with climate change, El Nino is largely responsible for record heat around the Globe this summer.
El Nino also tends to increase upper level winds over the Atlantic Ocean. Those strong high level winds tear apart the thunderstorms that fuel tropical storms and hurricanes, so they can't develop well.
That so far seems to be tempering the ability for all those storms in the Atlantic from becoming dangerous. The caveat is if any of the storms wander into an area with lighter winds up high, they can finally blossom big time. Were that to happen near a coastline a rapidly developing hurricane could be scary, as you might imagine.
Tropical storms and hurricanes can also surprise forecasters, so you alway have to keep an eye on them. So far, though, these storms are not much of a threat, except for one that threatens Hispaniola with heavy rain and another that hasn't quite developed yet in the Gulf of Mexico.
Let's briefly look at each storm:
EMILY: This is the most distant of all the storms, hanging around way, way out in the central Atlantic Ocean far from any land. As of this morning Emily's top winds were 40 mph, so it's barely strong enough to be regarded as a tropical storm.
Those strong upper level El Nino winds are ripping thunderstorms away from its center, and Emily is expected to pretty quickly fizzle out as it moves northwestward then northward in the central Atlantic. I wouldn't worry much at all about this one.
FRANKLIN: So far, Franklin is the worst of the bunch, though of course it's nothing extreme compared to many Atlantic Ocean monster hurricanes of the past.
Of course, Franklin isn't even a hurricane, just a tropical storm, given that its top winds are around 50 mph. It's in the central Caribbean Sea, and it's about to turn northward and head to Hispaniola in the next few days. It threatens to bring heavy rains, flooding and mudslides to that island and to Puerto Rico.
El Nino's upper level winds are affecting Franklin, but not as much as it is for the other systems in the Atlantic. Franklin is not forecast to strengthen much on its way to Hispaniola. It might end up becoming a hurricane after it gets north of that island at a point far south of Bermuda.
There's a slight chance that Franklin could eventually affect parts of Atlantic Canada in a week or two, but the risk so far appears low. But it bears watching.
GERT: Tropical Storm Gert is the oldest but lamest of the bunch. It struggled all day Sunday as a tropical depression, not even strong enough to be called a tropical storm. But its winds managed to increase to a still paltry 40 mph last night, so it got named Tropical Storm Gert.
Gert was rapidly falling apart this morning, so we can just forget about it
WANNABE HAROLD: If the storminess in the Gulf of Mexico becomes an actual tropical storm, it will likely be named Harold.
Wannabe Harold looks like it will indeed develop into a tropical storm and start heading westward. It has a good shot at being a threat to southern Texas or northeastern Mexico late in the week
HOW THIS AFFECT US
So far, tropical storms are absolutely no threat to us here in Vermont. Which is good news. After all the flooding we had this summer and the wet ground we have now, the last thing we need is a tropical storm.
None of the storms I mentioned are any kind of threat to us. Moreover, we should hope the weather pattern we have this week persists through hurricane season.
The northwest flow from southern and central Canada that we have now would tend to push any northward moving hurricane offshore.
We wouldn't want to have the weather pattern we did in July. That one featured an upper level low to our northwest and a dip in the jet stream over or near the Great Lakes. That pattern would have on occasion drawn a northward moving hurricane or tropical storm toward New England. That wouldn't be good.
So, despite the clouds and light showers this morning enjoy an otherwise dry week for a change.
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