Tropics in Transition. Not so quiet....Bastille Day Menu for Trouble

The word for the day is Sous-vide. It's a French term and that works as today is Bastille Day.

Sous-vide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sous-vide
Wikipedia
Sous-vide (/suːˈviːd/; French for "under vacuum") is a method of cooking food ...cooked in a switched-off slow cooker filled with hot water and a thermometer.

There's a lot going on in the tropics today, don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. It takes time to put together a good dish, even a great BBQ needs some prep time. You got to be thinking on what you want to BBQ, go to the store... find some inspiration... pick up some good brew... call some friends over and before you start grilling you need to put it together. It doesn't just pop onto your plate as a well done steak. No sir... it takes time for it to happen.

Before the shark shows it's fin in the water near the beach that you're swimming in... it had to swim towards the shore..

Took a while for Sir Steven to put that movie about a fish together, trust me. 

The tropics are a lot like the movie making business or cooking. 

So going to go through this process slowly with my not so great scribble scrabble on the above satellite image.

1. The breeding grounds for landfalling Category 2 Hurricane Arthur are waiting for more action to happen.

There has been moisture off the coast of SC for a while now as well as an Upper Level Low to the East that has been a semi permanent feature in the Atlantic for too long for something not to come together soon. Add in to the mix the big, bad cold front of summer aka known as the "SUMMER POLAR VORTEX" . . . 

(jaws music............)

What happens after the temperatures drop down to the low 80s? The front goes flat somewhere... hangs out across the SE Coast (and the GOM probably) and it doesn't take much for something to start to slowly boil. Sort of a crab boil? Or more better a good gumbo. Add a dead cold front into that summer time brew off of Savannah and you get a richer Bouillabaisse. 

2. When the EPAC slows down this area off of the Yucatan is rich for delayed development. You ask what delayed development is? It's an area where many a tropical wave that could not get it together due to dust or shear in the Eastern Caribbean flared up and finally found a sweet spot for development. I will say this over and over and over...they just don't start from rain storms over the Caymen Islands. 

"Spawned by a tropical wave, a convective system organized 60 miles west of Grand Cayman Island." then they move north towards Cold Fronts and wham, bam...they go down into the history books.

http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/tropical/rain/camille1969.html

Camille came together slowly in real time. A little bit of Colombian brew that moved north.. a little bit of a tropical wave that persisted past the graveyard of the Caribbean and suddenly... the  most memorable hurricane. The "suddenly" came after the "slowly" if you get my drift...

Against all odds every once in a while a wave makes it past the wind shear zone and has delayed development.  Only time will tell how that movie comes out...

3.  Check out that stubborn wave. It's as if it was arrested and wasn't read it's rights or something. 

Anyone can bet against this tropical wave staying alive... love is shady, love is tragic... a chain saw in the Caribbean of Shear should slice and dice this puppy up... or maybe... it will keep rolling until it finds a sweet spot...    Hard to say... all I know is the Eastern Caribbean has it's chain saw ready for it... can it make it past the chain saw and hook up with the moisture near the Caribbean? Hmmm? Saw a few models that hinted that something might try developing in the GOM and when I say "try" and "hinting" I'm whispering.

Now... look look to the north of the wave train that is following our over achieving tropical wave and you will see the dastardly dust known as SAL or DUSTY. Note the wave that wishes it could be Bertha is trying to sneak through the dust zone by staying to the south... but it will have to tangle with the graveyard of the Eastern Caribbean before it has any chance of closing out of town in Cleveland.

Last, but not least note that the temperature in Cleveland is dropping despite all the hype over Lebron's homecoming.

In Miami we have moved on to talk on other things, however on NASH Country in New York (a place filled with haters of Miami sports teams but who travel to Miami all the time in the Winter and go to Jets games...) they are talking enough about Lebron leaving the Miami Heat than they are talking about their own basketball team that used to once be a really big, famous team.........................

I do love Nash Country so ...so ignoring the "haha Lebron left Miami talk" and focusing more on their music and watching that front moving south... come on baby, bring it down. 

Watch this process that is as simple as 1-2-3

1... here comes the cold front... zoom, zoom, zoom

2. Making it all the way down into the Deep South... 

3. Cold front goes stationary front setting up rainy days along the coast of Carolina...

High builds back in...if something were to form in the Carib near the Yucatan.. it would go into the Gulf

(its a big IF but it is has happened and will again when the set up supports it)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RfT2KqPCoI

EXTRA CREDIT:

You see the way this set up plays out is that the tropics need something to blow this set up away for tropical formation to begin. Often later in the season it's the mix of cold fronts and tropical systems that really get landfalls going...or a hurricane going out to sea. You need two to tango...  And, that is from years of studying the tropics both in academia, at the NHC Library and on my own late at night and learning from old time pros who did more than give model discussion. 

The job of a weatherman.. weathergirl... is to do more than look pretty against the blue screen and to act as if they are fireman putting out fires. All they do now days is tell you what the models say (and models often change in real time) and try to make you feel better about buying a Caribbean cruise (that is often featured on the commercial on TWC) as if they are personally responsible for "clear sailing in the Caribbean" and "nothing to worry about" and they are wrong. There is much to worry about.

When a hurricane blows up in the Gulf of Mexico and threatens Tampa no one will believe it. When they say a hurricane that forms close in to Miami may make landfall.. no one will believe it because they moved there after Andrew and can't seem to remember Wilma or Katrina or Jeannie or Francis and they will assume they will turn out to sea. Why? Because they always do... because Miami hasn't had a direct landfall in way too long and people only want to remember what they want to remember. 

There are yellow leaves on my oak trees falling onto the green grass of Mid-Summer and every time the wind blows through the willows near my bedroom window leaves flutter to the ground. The crape myrtle is burned to a crisp and bloomed way too soon this summer. 

They are our own form of bougainvillea and they usually bloom late in the summer and into the fall. See:

"The crepe myrtles are among the most satisfactory of plants for the South: showy summer flowers, attractive bark, and (in many cases) brilliant fall color make them year-round garden performers. Long, cool autumns yield the best leaf display; sudden frosts following warm, humid fall weather often freeze leaves while they’re still green, ruining the show"

http://www.southernliving.com/home-garden/gardens/crepe-myrtle-trees.

They  better have a second bloom because they are losing their color way too soon this summer :(

They look like Gumbo Limbo trees with bougainvillea on the tip tops... 

many here in Raleigh look over cooked... 

and... it feels a lot like we are about 3 to 4 weeks ahead of the normal seasons.

Magnolias bloomed early too and burned up their blossoms on the branches early

Old timers round here talk..they are almost always right and oh...

they don't watch the models and they barely go online

but they can tell you when the pollen is about to pop

So...where were we? I'm not saying Bertha is going to pop up tomorrow. But, I'm saying it's like anything else in life you have to wait for it to come together. You see a sale on JetBlue and you book at ticket. You debate what to do and what to where and you plan your vacation. You start to pack and run to the store for a few things you forgot you would need. You call friends, you rent a hotel room and order a rental car and one day you are at the airport boarding that plane and starting your vacation. That is how the hurricane season works and if you spend too much time during the quiet time living in denial you will spend way too much time in long lines filled with panicked people clutching the last of the peanut butter on aisle 5. Eventually if you live in hurricane country a hurricane will find you!

If you live here you are in hurricane country:

Listen to this and remember it... even in slow seasons like 1935 and 1992 a hurricane found a way to bust through a slow season and break a lot of hearts in hurricane country!

2 slow seasons were 1935 and 1992 and I'm pretty sure that weather people on air would be telling everyone how quiet the season will be and how there is nothing out there today and doing all sorts of segments on lord only knows what to pass the time. What they should be telling you is to prepare because even slow seasons bring hurricanes. They should be talking on hurricane preparation not high fiving themselves on bringing you a hurricane free forecast. Worth noting BOTH of those slow seasons had hurricanes show up knocking on South Florida and Louisiana door steps. They sort of had a big high like we do this year.. probably a good measure of dust, strong shear somewhere and the models really were sure that Andrew would catch that early season cold front in August. 

If you like this blog this morning you can thanks NASH Country..listening online this morning.

http://player.listenlive.co/25221

http://www.nashfm947.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aA4seB6ou8

I listen to them with my daughter often while in NY.. she's a big fan.

Also, because New York City has been in the pattern of getting a lot of weather lately... 

Yes... I said New York City where country music is alive and kicking

"cause i saddle up my horse and I ride into the city"

"riding up and down Broadway"

Chris Young song playing right now.. ...great song.

"who I am with you...is who I really want to be... you're so good for me baby"

and of course...

http://spaghettimodels.com/

On a totally different Earth Science note... 

Hey Oklahoma.....................

How do you like that fracking now???

1. 2.97km E of Guthrie, Oklahoma2014-07-13 10:51:02 UTC-04:005.4 km
2. 2.79km SSW of Langston, Oklahoma2014-07-13 10:39:26 UTC-04:008.9 km

1. 2.76km SSW of Langston, Oklahoma2014-07-12 22:08:22 UTC-04:005.0 km
2. 2.89km SW of Langston, Oklahoma2014-07-12 21:57:44 UTC-04:005.0 km
3. 2.64km SSW of Langston, Oklahoma2014-07-12 20:57:57 UTC-04:005.5 km

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Besos Bobbi
Ps...will take hurricane country over earthquake country any day... time to prepare....


Bonus Recipe of the Day :)
http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/menu/sous-vide-recipes.html#