Well, I just couldn’t think up a good name for the blog today.  Really, though that kind of describes the current weather pattern.  It’s just…well…blah.  I definitely don’t mind that the tropics are quiet.  There are a couple of areas for possible development, but no tropical systems at this time.

NHC Probability Of Formation

One reason for the lack of tropical activity is that there are some large regions of dry air and also some upper level troughs.  Tropical systems tend to like upper level highs more as they promote outflow at the top.  Also there is a large area of SAL.  HUH?  Yep.  SAL is the Saharan Air Layer.  It is a dry dusty airmass that comes off of Africa and inhibits tropical storm formation.  The current SAL is rather large:

Saharan Airmass Layer

It is the area in orange and yellow in the above image.   There is an area that looks to develop coming off of Africa, and that will probably try to form into something.  Yes, NOAA recently updated their seasonal forecast, but again I am not a fan of these long-term predictions.  They did increase their numbers despite a growing chance for an El Nino to form in the Pacific.  It does have a big impact on storms in the Atlantic as it increases the wind shear there (typically).

Closer to home it’s a so-so forecast.  It will be a bit hotter and more humid outside with light southerly winds and highs in the 90s.  We’ll see a few pop-up storms in the area, but there will be more widespread storms in western/northern Virginia and western North Carolina.  These storms will be closer to a couple of fronts.

Weather Map Today

There is a slight risk for severe weather just north of our viewing area.  If you are traveling through Maryland today, then you may see some strong storms.  Some of those could drift down to the Northern Neck or Eastern Shore. Overall the models just aren’t showing too much rain here in Hampton Roads, but with the dew-points up there will be some decent instability.

Tomorrow the cool front to the west will slowly push in and give us some scattered storms.  The front won’t cool us down much though with highs in the mid-upper 80s.  On Thursday we still won’t be too cool, but we will dry things out .  We’ll stay dry on Friday, then another system will bring storms late Friday night into Saturday.

One person asked when we can start to see some relief from the humidity.  There has been some pretty cool air surging into the Midwest recently.  By the time it make it here it modifies, and looses some of its coolness.  In the next couple of weeks this air will be able to get pretty chilled.  So possibly by the first week of September we could be looking at more lows in the 60s. We’ll see.

Meteorologist: Jeremy Wheeler