I love your reports! I always have a question whenever I hear a fact like, only three tropical storms have formed in the eastern Atlantic since 1900. How do they know this from an era before radar? When did satellite photos of the atmosphere over remote areas of the Atlantic begin? Maybe this would be a good answer to put in one of your posts.
This is a really good point, and I hope to have the time this year to write a limitations of climatology post. The short answer is there are three MDR June storms *that we know of*, and it is very possible there are others we simply don't know about.
Before 1950, it's likely that we are missing 1-2 storms per hurricane season, as regular recon flights of the Tropical Atlantic started in the 1950s, and geostationary satellite imagery began in 1966. See Vecchi & Knutson 2010 (https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/24/6/2010jcli3810.1.xml).
There is a pool of abnormally cold water south of west Africa on the equator. Sort of an Atlantic La Niña. Will this have any effect on this hurricane season?
Probably not. There is very little correlation between SST anomalies in the equatorial eastern Atlantic in June and Atlantic ACE. "Atlantic Nino" is a real thing, but tends not to be in the climate mode driver's seat.
All else equal, it probably would, but the Equatorial Atlantic is unlikely to be setting the locations of large-scale rising and sinking airmasses in the Tropics this year due to the much larger normalized anomalies elsewhere.
I love your reports! I always have a question whenever I hear a fact like, only three tropical storms have formed in the eastern Atlantic since 1900. How do they know this from an era before radar? When did satellite photos of the atmosphere over remote areas of the Atlantic begin? Maybe this would be a good answer to put in one of your posts.
This is a really good point, and I hope to have the time this year to write a limitations of climatology post. The short answer is there are three MDR June storms *that we know of*, and it is very possible there are others we simply don't know about.
Before 1950, it's likely that we are missing 1-2 storms per hurricane season, as regular recon flights of the Tropical Atlantic started in the 1950s, and geostationary satellite imagery began in 1966. See Vecchi & Knutson 2010 (https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/24/6/2010jcli3810.1.xml).
There is a pool of abnormally cold water south of west Africa on the equator. Sort of an Atlantic La Niña. Will this have any effect on this hurricane season?
Probably not. There is very little correlation between SST anomalies in the equatorial eastern Atlantic in June and Atlantic ACE. "Atlantic Nino" is a real thing, but tends not to be in the climate mode driver's seat.
Thanks. I thought the pool of cold water would cause sinking air. I meant to say Atlantic El Niño in my Q.
All else equal, it probably would, but the Equatorial Atlantic is unlikely to be setting the locations of large-scale rising and sinking airmasses in the Tropics this year due to the much larger normalized anomalies elsewhere.
Thanks!