92W Moving Across the West Pacific, PTC01 Brings Rain to the Gulf Coast

The tropics are getting a little more active as we head into mid June. There are no major threats out there, but definitely a couple of systems to note.

West Pacific

Invest 92W is moving westward across the West Pacific. It has been a little slow to develop, but models are still bullish on this eventually becoming a TC, potentially a strong one (Figure 1). It is forecast to continue moving west then eventually turn just east of the Philippines. It could be something to watch in the medium range as a potential threat to Japan.

The 1000-member Google DeepMind ensemble (Figure 2) shows a TC genesis time in about 2-3 days, but many members still make a strong typhoon out of 92W, with the median intensity over 100 knots.

The environment looks fairly supportive of development in the near-term. SSTs are warm as always in the West Pacific, and the system will be embedded in an area of light upper level winds that should allow outflow to expand (Figure 3). The timing and degree of intensification will likely come down to storm structure, which is something AI models still may not always be fully able to capture.

For the long-term track, we’ll need to keep a close eye on the upstream pattern evolution over Eastern Asia. It looks like a shortwave trough will eventually help to lift the system to the north, but the pattern looks fairly complex with a cutoff trough to the Northwest (Figure 4). Differences in trough location, structure, and timing are likely part of why there is large track spread in the medium range, and this will be something to monitor in the coming days.

Google DeepMind and some other models are also hinting at another possible system East of the Philippines in the medium to long range, so we’ll see how that signal evolves over time.

East Pacific

The East Pacific is fairly quiet at the moment, though there is still a slight hint of some development in the medium range (Figure 5). With a growing El Niño and warm waters across the region, we would expect activity to pick up at some point.

Atlantic

The main system of interest in the Atlantic is Potential Tropical Cyclone One (PTC1) located near the Texas Coast. It may briefly move out over the Gulf, and could be classified as TC if it is able to get organized enough. Upper-level winds are pretty strong, so I would not expect significant intensification (Figure 6). However, the large-scale forcing is favorable for heavy rain, so the system could be a flooding threat along the Gulf Coast (Figure 7).

We’ll see how these systems evolve in the coming days and update again soon!