Tropics 6-8-04

[WXBUFFJIM]

Now that Manic Monday is past us, we can look forward to TGIF. Before that happens though, we got some tropical weather to talk about on this Tuesday morning. A typhoon continues to strengthen slowly over the western Pacific near the northwestern Philippines. Taiwan will likely be near the path of this typhoon over the next day or two with quite a number of effects, especially from very heavy rainfall.

The center of typhoon Conson was located near 18.6 N, 119.4 E. Movement is north northeast at 9 mph. Maximum sustained winds are near 75 mph with higher gusts. Conson is expected to slowly strengthen to 85 mph within the next day or two as it approaches the eastern coastline of Taiwan. Very heavy rain will likely occur with this system in parts of Taiwan.

This warning graphic https://metoc.npmoc.navy.mil/jtwc/warnings/wp0704.gif shows what could be a very devastating landfall over eastern Taiwan, not neccessarily due to wind. But extreme rainfall is expected with this as this system combines with 13000 foot mountains adding more orographic lift to the picture. Thus flooding and mudslides are the problems we need to worry about if in Taiwan. Taipei is definitely in the path of this one and we'll continue to monitor this dangerous situation over the next few days.

Shifting our focus, we got another interesting feature in the eastern Pacific at around 17.0 north, 106.9 west. This system will likely strengthen and could become a depression or a tropical if it maintains it's current state and gets better organized. Winds aloft are slightly more favorable for this to happen. The next named storm in the eastern Pacific would be Blas and that maybe in jeopardy as early as later today or sometime on Wednesday. This will also be monitored closely.

Meanwhile the Atlantic is fairly quiet this morning with a few exceptions. The first exception is over the Gulf Of Mexico, particularly the western portion of the gulf where a tremendous plume of Gulf Of Mexico moisture will likely develop with thunderstorm complex after thunderstorm complex becoming a problem for the Texas coastal waters over the next few days. The big threat with this will be flooding rains. Overall wind profiles aloft do not favor tropical development anywhere in the Gulf as west winds aloft continue.

Same situation remains the case for the Caribbean and the remainder of the Tropical Atlantic. While convection is present in the western Caribbean, and east of the Leeward Islands in the tropical Atlantic, strong west wind aloft continues to shear these systems. Thus no tropical development is expected anywhere in the Atlantic basin over the next few days.

Jim

[rainstorm]

thanks jim