Tropical Depression 2: July 23, Update A

I thought it was about time to jot down a bon mot or two on the latest blobette. :-)

I have been watching the mini-blobette (officially known as TD2) as she left Africa and zoomed across the Atlantic. She has been struggling, and at the moment there is very little circulation in the lower half of the troposphere and the convection has just decreased:

She is currently centered at 13.9N, 53.2W and is moving WNW at a very rapid 20mph. This blobette really doesn't have much to it, so it's pretty tricky to see where the center is actually and this location is as good as any other.

She is heading to the Lesser Antilles, and the folks there should be getting ready for it by making sure they have enough fixings for their umbrella drinks. It should be a lovely breezy day, maybe a little overcast with a drop or two of rain.

The forecast is for this system to dissipate any moment now and just be a low pressure trough by the time it moves over the Lesser Antilles. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, the wind shear is not very high, but high enough to hinder this blobette from getting the curling iron out. And second, the blobette is running into a bit of dry air:

(I don't know what they did to the colours of the normal water vapor map because these are horrible). The dry air as that dull dirty icky yellow shaded stuff.

However, so far she has been moving over relatively cold water (sea surface temperatures of less than 26.5 deg C - the temperature needed to sustain a storm). She's about to enter an area where the water temperatures are warmer than 26.5 deg C, with the upper ~100m being warmer than 26 deg C. This should sustain the convection at least and there is a chance she'll have more than one or two drops of rain as she crosses the Lesser Antilles.

I do agree with the NHC that she is too weak to amount to much, but I am still going to keep an eye on her. I'll be back with more if she does strengthen, otherwise I will spend the time watching really old black and white episodes of Dr. Who. :-)

Cheerio for now!
J.

Blogs archived at http://jyotikastorms.blogspot.com/
Twitter @JyovianStorm
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DISCLAIMER: These remarks are just what I think/see regarding tropical storms - not the opinion of any organization I represent. If you are making an evacuation decision, please heed your local emergency management and the National Hurricane Center's official forecast and the National Weather Service announcements. This is not an official forecast. If I "run away, run away" (Monty Python), I'll let you know.
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