Tropical Storm Danny has formed in the Atlantic after a persistent area of convection associated with a tropical wave finally developed a low level circulation. HurricaneHunter aircrafts performed an investigation on the system yesterday but there was not enough indication of westward winds to declare it a tropical storm. What they did find though were peak surface winds in excess of 50 knots associated with the open wave. 

Today the NHC has labled it as a 40kt tropical storm which is forecast to become a hurricane in a couple days. The system itself is currently being sheared by an upper level low so the initial process of strengthening may hold off for a little while. 

Models are spread on the direction the storm will head over the next few days with the NHC favouring the left bias models and having a possible north east coast landfall for the system which may be a hurricane at that time. The NHC has forecasted the system to peak at 65kt's which is the hurricane threshold.

Keep an eye on this system as it develops over the next few days, it may hold some surprises as tropical developments never seem to end up the way we originally think.

It's been a while since the previous update, but as you can see from the last update the models were accurate in developing Hurricane Bill. Bill was first named when he became a tropical storm while tracking across the Atlantic, it was the first 'Cape Verdes' type hurricane of the 2009 hurricane season and also went on to become the first major hurricane of the season. Hurricane Bill managed to reach maximum sustained winds of 115 knots and became a category 4 hurricane.

As of the afternoon of August 21st Hurricane Bill had dropped in intensity, but to much surprise there was a second eyewall present and it appeared Bill may be going through another eyewall replacement cycle. While large strong hurricanes do go through eyewall replacement cycles, Bill seemed to have quite a few ERCs in a short period of time.

After the suspected ERC is completed Hurricane Bill is likely to regain some strength before encountering shear and colder water temperatures.

The model handling of Bill has not been great in the long term and many of the models were originally showing an east coast or gulf coast hit, at one stage the GFS showed a New Orleans hit, which thankfully never panned out. As it stands now most models take Bill off the NE coast of the United States and gives a possible landfall in Nova Scotia, with possible strong winds experienced in Halifax, Canada.

As the Atlantic stands at the moment, a 3 day flurry saw the naming of 3 storms and with a week of "quiet" models are hinting at another possible storm to form from a wave that has left the African coast and is currently over the Atlantic. This area is being watched for signs of development by the National Hurricane Center.

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It's been over two months since the Atlantic hurricane season started and we are still without a named storm, making 2009 one of the ten latest starting seasons in the past 50 years. Proving just how erratic the tropics are, after 2005 many were calling the activity on global warming, but the past 4 years have showed that there is often little predictability in the tropics.

For those who enjoy following these storms it's been a dull year thus far but light beckons, as the Atlantic seems to be heating up and there are currently 3 areas of disturbed weather, of which one is "Code Orange", this is an area which has 30-50% potential in becoming a tropical depression in 48 hours of the issuing of the code. Below you can see that the 3 areas of disturbed weather, with the eastern most wave, near the Cape Verdes being the most likely for development.

Models show the code orange disturbance which has been assigned as Invest 99L developing as a weak storm and heading along the east coast of the United States. The models are also suggesting the development of a possible hurricane over the next week or so as the next tropical wave emerges off Africa and moves into favourable conditions for development. There are numerous models which support this development including the CMC, EURO, GFS and others. The EURO and GFS are both the more aggressive models, it is important to note that this year the CMC/Canadian model got some tweaks and is now supposed to be less aggressive than it's previous phantom category 5 self.

 Above is the ECMWF/EURO model and below the GFS model, the EURO is at 240 hours, the GFS at 324 hours.

I'd keep an eye on the tropics over the next 2 weeks as things are bound to get heated up.

Below is the latest satellite image provided by the South African Weather Service- showing a well developed cold front passing over the Western Cape today the 4 August 2009. Along with this cold front the SAWS has issued the following warnings:

National Warning - Issued on Tuesday, 4 August 2009 at 15.00

Very rough seas with wave heights in excess of 5m are expected between Lamberts Bay and Plettenberg Bay spreading to Port Alfred overnight persisting through to Thursday.
Very cold conditions are expected over the western highground of the Western and Northern Cape Province.

This past weekend I was in Johannesburg and witnessed some of the extremely cold temperatures that occued on the Saturday. At Johannesburg airport the temperature was 4`C at 4pm and 3'C when I landed at 6. There were confirmed reports of hail as a very strong squall line passed through the area. You can view the radar image of the squall line in the forums as Gordon Richardson managed to capture an image while the squall was in full force.

GFS model is also showing a possible strong system near the latter part of it's run- which I will be monitoring for consistency.