You remember when hurricanes Helene, Joyce, Kirk, Leslie and, most of all, Milton quickly, organized in the tropics?
What sparked those named storms is about to circle back around for one last fell swoop.
It all stems from what’s called the Madden-Julian Oscillation. If you aren’t up to speed on that large region of aggravated weather, let’s talk about it.
The Madden-Julian Oscillation, or “MJO” as I’m sure you’ve heard numerous weather sources say aloud or type in previous stories, is an eastward moving cluster of disturbed weather and rising motions. As this vast zone of rising motions and thunderstorms moves east, it does laps around the globe and hugs the equator as it does so.
This focuses all that instability particularly on the tropics. It forces the atmosphere to destabilize, and also introduces moisture in areas that may be barren or dry otherwise.
The MJO acts like a shovel, scooping clouds and whatever moisture it brings along its path up to the highest point in the atmosphere where weather is observed. As a result, especially during hurricane season, any weak or sloppy tropical waves end up receiving a little “nudge,” resulting in increased cyclone development throughout the Caribbean and the Atlantic. It can also help to clear out any increased wind shear across the basin, which is a tropical system’s mortal nemesis.
We have had multiple MJO events through the Atlantic this hurricane season. The latest was what helped create the slew of major hurricanes from Helene to Milton, before winding down.
We’re now beneath the “suppressed” phase of the oscillation. As the name implies, suppressed meaning the opposite impact on weather conditions. Sinking air, increased drying, and more wind shear since the thunderstorms and rising motions have no moved on to the east.
All of our long-range computer models suggest we are likely to receive the next lap of our MJO as we approach Halloween. This enhanced or excited phase will likely last into middle November, which means anything is possible in terms of a named storm or two spinning up at a moment’s notice.
It appears the “sweet spot” with the greatest chance of producing our next named system is going to be the central and western Caribbean. This has actually been a favorable source region since the start of the season. We should see the greatest concentration of rising motions, reintroduction of needed moisture to produce storms, alongside a reduction in the wind shear that was started up with the onset of our fall front last week.
While confidence is growing another tropical storm or two could develop over the next two to three weeks, it is far too early to suggest Florida may be at risk. We all heard the rumors that Nadine was headed our way, yet we were left with a beautiful fall setup since the end of Milton.
However, anytime a storm gets going in a land-locked area like the Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico, it would behoove you to at least keep glancing back at our tropical updates to ensure you’re up to speed with the latest information.
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