To be or not to be... Kyle, that is the question.

It's Sky Watch Friday post time!! (Please visit Tom, Klaus, Sandy and Imac's SKY WATCH BLOG (click here or on the logo) to participate in Sky Watch Fridays. It is so interesting to see skies from all over the world!!! I highly recommend not just checking it out, but consider participating! It's a truly great group of people!!!) Thanks to everyone who offered such encouraging and kind words regarding my intro to sky watch last week. It truly is an honor being a part of such an inspirational group of folks. For my sky watch post here today, I have chosen to post a picture I took during a mini-storm chase last April, when I had my own little storm cell develop and mature with beautiful structure. South of me, the storm produced a brilliant green sky, but in the early stages it was this beautiful cumulonimbus cloud (calvus type)...

Cumulonimbus (Cb) is a type of cloud that is tall, dense, and involved in thunderstorms and other intense weather. The clouds can form alone, in clusters, or along a cold front in a squall line. Cumulonimbus clouds form from cumulus clouds (namely from cumulus congestus) and can further develop to a supercell, a severe thunderstorm with special features. ~source

I was thrilled to be able to catch that patch of wisteria with the swelling cumulus blurred (Bokeh, thanks, Beth!) in the background... hadn't realized how beautiful wisteria blossoms were up close until that point. I wrote about this little spontaneous chase back in April... and gave the fully detailed account. Today, let me just say that the memories are alive in my heart, like it just happened yesterday. It's amazing how memorable that day was even though it was just a little storm cell... nothing too impressive by typical storm chasing standards... just a little thunderhead that I watched from infancy to dissipation. I guess that sort of makes it my baby...Onto the crazy Atlantic basin tropics... As I've been mentioning, there are two disturbances that all the weather geeks, such as myself, are keeping a close eye on. In fact, the National Hurricane Center has issued a Special Tropical Disturbance Statement to cover both. One, just off the coast of the Carolinas is producing huge waves (I have heard up to 18' waves) and tropical storm force winds. Unfortunately, our team member, Mikey, who lives on the Virginia Coast, is currently in Huntington Beach, CA?!!!!... He is, however, getting updates from his wife, who has let him know that water is now two blocks from his house. He is due home tonight. Hopefully, flight delays won't prevent his return, and he will be able to offer us a full update. Currently, that disturbance (frontal-born low) has not gained sufficient tropical characteristics to be named, so it is being considered more of a nor'easter type storm rather than a tropical system, at this time...

THIS SYSTEM COULD DEVELOP INTO A SUBTROPICAL OR TROPICAL CYCLONE BEFORE THE SYSTEM MOVES INLAND ALONG THE ALONG THE SOUTHEASTERN U.S. COAST ON FRIDAY. REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT THIS SYSTEM BECOMES A SUBTROPICAL OR TROPICAL CYCLONE... STRONG WINDS...COASTAL FLOODING...HIGH SURF... AND DANGEROUS RIP CURRENTS WILL CONTINUE ALONG PORTIONS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN AND MID-ATLANTIC U.S. COASTAL REGIONS DURING THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS.

The other system is the one that has been dumping swimming pools worth of water on Puerto Rico, causing mudslides and flooding with their over 30" in some parts of that region, just over the past week, while that tropical "disturbance" held position directly over them. Fortunately, that system has finally shown signs of movement and appears to be pulling away from Puerto Rico with its very asymmetrical shape with its sites set on northern New England. Depending on how quickly things move, these two systems COULD impact the same area at the same time... which would be a bad thing for the northeast (as Mikey said, Perfect Storm). This one could also become a named system in the coming days... so technically, we could be looking at Kyle AND Laura in the making.

5:00PM Update: Thanks to Jess for the update on Tropical Storm Kyle. Looks like the Puerto Rico system won.

Hope everyone's day is great!!!
~Dewdrop