Tropical Depression 4: August 18, Update A

The last few weeks I have no travel and nothing is going on in the Atlantic (although the Pacific has been on a roll!)... today I travel, today we have a storm. Harrumph. Typical!

So, a very quick note. There is a storm in the Atlantic. End of quick note. ;-)

This blob is centered at 10.6N, 36.5W, and is heading generally westward at 13mph:

Central pressure is 1009mb, and winds are estimated to be 35mph. 

So... want the groovy news or the not-so-groovy news first? Let's start with the not-so-groovy and end on a high note shall we? 

The sea surface water temperature is around 28 deg C, with the upper ~75m of the water column being warmer than 26 deg C. This is warm enough to sustain a storm and allow it to grow. 

Looking at it's circulation, the vorticity is quite strong in the lower half of the troposphere, but there is also a very small signal in the upper troposphere. This means that the structure of the storm is good (for now) and if there was nothing working against it, it would continue to grow to a hurricane.

The groovy news is that there is something that is inhibiting it from growing at the moment... it is currently moving into a dense area of dusty, dry air from the Sahara Desert (cleverly named the 'Saharan Air Layer'), which you can see by the red areas on this map of the Atlantic:

This is acting to suppress the convection (rain, thunderstorms, and all that jazz), as you can see in this infra-red satellite video:

The red area, depicting really strong thunderstorms, has decreased and we are left with areas of yellow and orange, depicting heavy rain.

The pressure maps are showing that it will continue westward. It is a bit early to tell as this is still 3-4 days away from the Caribbean, but it may stay to the south. We'll see. 

Once they name it, this is Tropical Storm Danny. (I think it should already be called Tropical Storm Danny). 

I will check in again tomorrow, but a bit later in the day. 
Toodles my friends!
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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