A Wind Shift for South Florida as a Dust Belt Controls the Tropics

The general flow of air over South Florida will be out of the ocean for the foreseeable future, breaking the unrelenting heat. The water around Florida and through the Bahamas is still warmer than normal, so it’s not like a switch is thrown, but as the breeze picks up, the ocean will churn and temperatures should generally moderate a bit. little bit.

An eastern ocean flow generally produces night and morning storms on the east coast and evening storms inland and on the west coast.

Embedded in that flow, which will spread across the Atlantic from Africa to Florida, are the waves of moisture and wind, which are generally related to each other. The first is expected for tomorrow until Saturday, and then another early next week. Clouds and the possibility of thunderstorms will increase as they pass.

The computer forecast model shows the humidity (in green) that happens on Saturday and another patch that will arrive on Tuesday. It also shows a large patch associated with a disturbance near Africa. Brown areas are dry air in the middle levels of the atmosphere, largely caused by Saharan dust.

These waves are disturbances that have dampened a patch in the continuous flow of Saharan dust over the tropical Atlantic. Over the next two weeks, these shocks will increasingly originate in Africa, where strong shocks are already taking place. However, as long as dust covers the tropical ocean, these so-called tropical waves cannot organize once they leave the African land mass.

If things really do form and there is no reason to think that they will not, we will slowly see less dust on the ocean, so that disturbances moving west have more opportunities to organize. This scenario will be more likely as we move forward in August.

But for now, no tropical development is expected until next week.