Blast Furnace Heat and Dance Shoes ?!

#1. Tropics are nice and quiet. A little less than a week ago there was a little curiousity with the western half of the Caribbean with a weak upper low that may have tried to spin something up. This scenario certainly did not evolve, and as of now, a check of the next 5 to 10 days shows very little unless something develops with little notice. Over the next few days, the only real area of potential might be off the Carolina's coast with a front and potential area of low pressure but this is really a long shot.

#2. And wow, this has been a hot and humid stretch of weather. Our average high this time of year is 89, so 90+ over the past 7 days along with the next 5 to 6 days is ahead of the curve! However, lets remember June of 2008 that featured 90+ for the first 15 days of the month and two of those days were 97 and 98!!!! Yikes!

#3. Well, the dancing shoes will be going on this Friday as my wife and I take dance lessons. It's time to get that monkey off my back and learn a few moves. I have a few fears in life or things that make me uncomfortable... snakes, spiders and dance floors-hah! Kara and I hope to learn to salsa and foxtrot... maybe a cha-cha too. We'll see what shakes when all is said and done. No pun intended:)

Still Watching Tropics and...

It is plainly obvious our assortment of weather models are having a difficult time honing in on a consensus solution with the western half of the Caribbean. All models seem to develop a weak surface low to some extent but certainly are not going hog wild with a full blown tropical system. Conditions at the moment are not favorable for organization and development with persistent wind shear ripping across the Caribbean associated with an upper level trough. That said, it does appear shear will relax somewhat later in the week and this area could become a little more favorable. I'll attach an image off the overnight run of the GFS model for this upcoming Friday. Clearly we still have a circulation but it's not as deep or organized as some past model runs. This is not to say we can discount this long range forecast... given time of year, climatology and a somewhat improved environment by week's end into the weekend, it certainly will merit our attention.

And last but not least... not sure how many Detroit Red Wing hockey fans are out there but wow, welcome back Pavel Datsyuk!! I've been a loyal fan for years of this club going back to the rookie days of Steve Yzerman and will admit I was offly queasy going into game 5. Little did I know just how much Datsyuk brings to this team. My fingers are crossed it will solve the Igloo riddle in game 6 and we can hoist a back-to-back Stanley Cup trophy!

Something Worth Keeping an Eye on

For a couple of days now and multiple runs of computer model data into the 6 to 8 day timeframe, consistency has remained high on trying to develop a tropical system in the Caribbean and bring it north across Cuba. The area of interest begins around Central America where surface pressures generally fall in the 2 to 3 day timeframe from today and ultimately climatology which favors the western half of the Caribbean for tropical development takes hold. I'll attach an image going just over 5 days out and it will be pretty easy to spot this tropical system.

This is only in a distant watch mode right now as we monitor any potential thunderstorm clusters near Central America that could become a source point for tropical development. You can track infrared satellite imagery in this region on our forecastfirst.com weather web page. Just scroll halfway down the page to the tropical loop to see the suspect area. A few other weather models indicate a weak low in this same general region which only builds forecast suspicion.

If something were to take shape, well, that becomes an interesting proposition as a large ridge in the Atlantic combined with a potential trough of low pressure over Texas next week would create a mean steering current to the north and that puts Cuba, Bahamas and Florida into play. So while it's extremely early in the game, lets keep an eye on this area and see what churns... if anything. Models have improved tremendously over recent years but can still push out false alarm systems. I'll be very interested in the next two days worth of model data along with satellite imagery in this part of the tropics!