Showers today and the tropics

A dsturbence that derived in the southwestern states out of the monsoon moisture is tracking across the region and showers and thunderstorms will likely be the result. But, they will be very scattered and the chance of any given location recieveing rain is only around 30 percent. Other than maybe an isolated shower or thunderstorm today, skies will be partly cloudy with highs in the mid to upper 80's. So overall, another nice day today.

Now on to the tropics. The Atlantic Hurricane season has been extermely inactive for the past few months with not even a Tropical Depression, but finally, the Atlantic basin waking up and getting quite active. The first named storm of the season has formed and has been named Ana.

Ana originated from a disturbence off of Africa, and quickly became Tropical Depression #2. Convectivity and thunderstorms increased on August 12th and it looked like it would become a Tropical Strom, but just as it was looking healthy, it diminished to a swirl of clouds and even lossed TD status and bacame a "remnant low". The system managed to get its act together again and has now been named Ana with winds of 40 mph and a pressure of 1005 mb. So, it is a weak system, but may strengthen even more.

Take a look at the current satelite image of Ana:



The system is very small and there are a lot of uncertainties with it. It is moving westerly, and the NHC has it possible reaching 70 mph wind speed by next Thursday. Here is the projected path of the system:



Here are some of the uncertanties with this system. It is very small, dry air is wrapping into it, and it is dealing with some wind shear. With it dealing with wind shear and dry air, the system is very proned to weakening as it is very small. If it manages to make it through and survive the next couple of days, Ana might strengthen more.

There is another TD behind Ana, the is likely to become Tropical Storm Bill this afternoon and Cluadette looks to be soon to follow.

Alex Pickman