Summary on July 31st, 2008
The TPARC group is investigating several areas of interest: ex-Invests 98W, Invest 09W and TCS002 and TCS005.
You can see an anotated 18z 31th July satellite summary here.
An image, at the same time with AMVs included is shown below:
Upper-level AMVs and associated Satellite Image valid 18UTC on 31 July, 2008
Several of the features on the annotated image can be seen clearly. The TUTT, or Tropical upper-tropospheric trough can be seen around 20N 158E. This trough is fairly robust and hangs around through at least the next 18 hours.
One can also see some of the upper level divergence around TCS004 as well, the invest area that seems to be the primary focus of the TPARC group.
This system appears to be in fairly good shape as seen in the image below:
Upper-level AMVs and divergence for TCS004
This divergence centered over the system has also been fairly robust over the past several hours. Definitely a system worth watching.
The forecast:
By 00z on the 3 of August, the NOGAPS begins to spin up this system. We’ll have to monitor the shear product at this time to see if it weakens. Currently the shear is fairly strong. They are considering a targeted flight over this region to evaluate the model.
The 00z run on August 1st continues to develop a system here according to the NOGAPS. The Met Office Global model develops a smaller and weaker system (00z, August 1st). We’ll keep an eye on these forecasts and hope to use some of the satellite products to validate.
Tags: divergence TCS004