East Pacific Blob, Gulf of Mexico Blobette, and the Atlantic Blob: August 6, Update A

Huh, 

I turn my back for one day, 

And all the little blobs and blobettes come out to play! 

(How's that for the worst poetry in the Universe? Surely I beat out the Vogons at least? ;-)). 

First, what happened to Tropical Storm Earl Grey Tea? He was stronger than initially forecast as he got into the Bay of Campeche, and then he fizzled out over the Mexican mountains... or so the official story goes. What actually appears to be happening is that he retained enough of his circulation (vorticity) as he crossed Mexico, and is now emerging in the eastern Pacific (the Eastern Pacific Blob) and may possibly re-form. Storms have crossed from the Atlantic into the Pacific before. He will get a new name - they are currently on ‘I’ with Tropical Storm Ivette in the eastern Pacific (she’s about 1300 miles east of Hawaii, but should dissipate before getting there). So, should he develop, the Tropical Storm formerly-known-as-Earl in the Atlantic, will become Tropical Storm Javier in the Pacific (and I wouldn’t be too surprised if he did become a Hurricane at some point). But for our purposes, this is my last update on this little blob.

Gulf of Mexico Blobette

This Blobette has been trying to get a grip on things over the last ~18 hours, mostly by generating a lot of convection over the northeast Gulf of Mexico – that rainy weather you are northern Gulf coast. As you can see from the infrared satellite image, she is still generating a lot of rainy weather in the Gulf:

In the last 12 hours, the circulation (vorticity) in the lower half of the troposphere has improved, which suggests that she is developing. She was stationary over the Gulf, but is now very slowly beginning to move northeastward - over the northern Florida peninsula. You can see approximately where she in this map of the vorticity (circulation) - she’s the bright red Blobette next to Florida:

(If you need a reminder about these maps, check out the Science Alert! here.) The next named storm will be Fiona.

Atlantic Blob

And to round it all off, there is also a Blob hanging out just north of Puerto Rico. He’s another newbie to the scene, and you can see him in the infrared satellite image as well. But can you see him in the vorticity map? No, right? That suggests to me that although there is convection (rain and what not ß technical jargon ;-)), he doesn’t have any real structure, so for now I am not going to mention him again.

There, I think that’s the Bunch o’ Blobs update for today. J Back to a glass of wine and a re-re-re-watching of the classic and delightfully elegant Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. :-)

Ciao 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.