Texas Weather & Why no hurricanes?

We’re in for a week of decent morning temperatures but hot afternoons with no rain - just like East Central Texas. Somehow Chip and Joanna endure this without complaint. Wondering why there are no hurricanes anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere during the peak week? I will attempt an explanation and offer you an outlook in a longer-than-usual “Long Range Ramblings.”

The Foreca graphic looks good except for the Monday shower - the next chance of rain appears to be next Wednesday and Thursday. Otherwise, pretty boring weather with loads of sun and an increase in humidity as we enter next week.

Once again, nothing going on in the tropics just about anywhere. That is really rare, especially in the Western Pacific which normally racks up 6-8 super typhoons a year. This year, they’ve had none. If you are interested in finding out why, read on. If you just want an outlook - skip ahead to last two paragraphs. This map, showing departures from normal of sea surface temperature (SST), offers a clue as to the worldwide hurricane drought..

There’s a lot of warmer-than-normal water (red color) in the subtropics, say from Japan eastward to California and in the North Atlantic from Bermuda to Portugal. Further south, where hurricanes or typhoons form, it’s more of a mixed bag with temperatures averaging slightly above normal. Turns out this pattern messes up the atmospheric circulation.

In normal years, with average or somewhat below average SSTs in the subtropics, rising air is strongest withing 20 degrees of the equator. Over the relatively cooler subtropics, the air largely sinks and some of it heads south when it sinks to the surface to converge with the warmer deep tropical air. That convergence enhances the upward motion leading to storm formations.

This year, with widespread warm water up to 40 degrees North (think Japan and New Jersey), the convergence takes place further north. This results in weaker storms further north. Some of this changes later in the season when fronts push their way offshore creating convergence in a more direct manner.

So hurricane formation is dependent on a variety of factors, not just warm sea surface temperatures, but low wind shear, upper level divergence, mid level moisture or the opposite (dust), and surface convergence. Bet they didn’t teach you that in grade school.

Why the warmer-than-normal SSTs in the subtropics? Though the standard answer is the increase in carbon dioxide, I favor a minority theory that underwater volcanic activity is causing warm SSTs. There’s an incredible correlation between SST increases and underwater seismic activity in certain belts.

End of the geeky explanation. Though this season appears to be dead, so did the Buffalo Bills a few nights ago. Translation: Even though no storms are expected that would impact the U.S. in the next 10 days, favorable upper air conditions will be building in from the west for late Sept. and early Oct. Here’s the latest European probabilities for tropical storms for the seven day period starting Sept. 22. We’ll have to watch a small area in the Eastern Gulf during that week for possible formation. During following weeks (not shown), the chances increase in the Gulf but shift further south. Fingers crossed that this means that whatever happens in the Southern Gulf will stay bottled up down there because of westerly winds aloft over us, but its too far off to say that with any certainty.

.Closer to home, expect a decent chance of rain Wednesday and Thursday Sept. 17 and 18. This wet spell has a chance of lasting a few more days and we badly need it to.

Foreca graphic for Pensacola Beach shows simply gorgeous beach weather. Highs mostly upper 80s. Lows 70s with plenty of sun. I’ve been told there are few jellyfish.