That Mushy Northwest Side Of The Bermuda High

So far this hurricane season, it looks like the NW side of the Bermuda High (all along the arc formed by the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the U.S.) is a weak point where tropical storms can get started. Today, for example, Chantal, near Newfoundland, became the third named storm of the Atlantic season.

Thunderstorms are forecast to be gathering over the northern Gulf of Mexico this week and pushing northeastward. The GFS model brings most of these storms ashore not far from Tallahassee: The NOGAPS model brings them ashore farther north, near Biloxi. In any event, it’s good that these storms get brought ashore early, because if they remained over water, they would almost certainly coalesce to become a tropical storm. The NOGAPS model is forecasting the storms will move across Georgia and cause intense rains over Aiken, SC Saturday morning: the GFS model is more equivocal, keeping the storms over SE SC on Friday.

In any event, the weekend may be stormy down along the SE coasts of the US.