Well, surprise, surprise:

Oops! Sorry, wrong ocean.  There are no hints of any tropical storm activity in the North Atlantic, Caribbean or GoMex.  The US GFS model does spin up something tropical looking in the GoMex during the next 24 hours and carries it across Florida and intensifies it offshore Friday. The National Hurricane Center (www.nhc.noaa.gov )might get a tad excited but this feature is demure to non-existent in the other models. It is always a bust-happy forecast relying on an outlier model solution.

One thing for sure, there is 50-80 knots of upper level shear from Central America to the African coast. It is impossible to spin up a hurricane in such a hostile environment. The omniscient models carry this shear out 180 hours easily. No tropical storm formation is expected over the long holiday weekend. I’m too low in the food chain to declare the North Atlantic hurricane over; but, if I were a betting man… .

The west Pacific storm above is Typhoon Nida, 65 kts, bearing down on the island of Yap. Really! It’s always hurricane season somewhere.

Merry Thanksgiving!

Mark Malsick

Severe Weather Liaison

South Carolina Department of Natural Resources

State Climate Office

1000 Assembly Street Columbia, SC 29202

803-734-0039

MalsickM@dnr.sc.gov