The National Hurricane Center is issuing advisories on Tropical Storm Ana which is located about 710 miles east-southeast of the Leeward Islands. And, on Tropical Storm Bill which is located about 905 miles west-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands.

The Atlantic Basin is alive! The National Hurricane Center named Tropical Storm Bill in their afternoon update.

The National Hurricane Center has had some fun with Invest99l, which became Tropical Depression Two, which was then downgraded to an Invest after a few days, and then upgraded back to Tropical Depression Two and then just this morning upgraded to the first named storm in the Atlantic Basin for the 2009 Hurricane Season – Tropical Storm Ana.

The Atlantic Basin might actually be coming alive – maybe. A low pressure area associated with a tropical wave just off the western coastline of Africa is organizing near the Cape Verde Islands. The system is moving to the west at 10-15 mph and the National Hurricane Center has given it a 30 percent chance of becoming a tropical depression within the next 48-hours.

Scientists at The Florida State University’s Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies (COAPS) have developed a new computer model that they hope will predict with unprecedented accuracy how many hurricanes will occur in a given season.

NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC) released thier latest ENSO Discussion today. The synopsis is El Niño is expected to strengthen and last through the Northern Hemisphere Winter 2009-2010.

Canadian meteorologist say that gave as much warning as possible about a severe wind event that collasped a stage at the Big Valley Jamboree in Camrose. A severe weather warning was issued for the area at 6:04 p.m., several minutes after the stage collasped at around 5:57 p.m.

Finally, there is a tiny little piece of action happening in the Atlantic Basin this very quiet hurricane season. Here is the gist of it from the National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gtwo_atl.shtml

If you woke this morning in east Oklahoma and were lucky enough to see the sunrise, you had a great treat to relax to while enjoying your morning coffee!

Last month USA Today reported that Five U.S. Patent and Trade Office patent applications, made public on July 9, propose slowing hurricanes by pumping cold, deep-ocean water in their paths from barges. If issued, the patents offer 18 years of legal rights to the idea for Gates and co-inventors, including climate scientist Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

I don’t know what is more thrilling, when you intercept a tornado – or when one of your long-time friends and past tour guest intercepts a tornado. The latter happened today when I received a text message from Nicole saying there was a wicked storm in the Denver area and she was going to head out an “see what she could see”.

Overnight (June 7th, 2009) a rare atmospheric phenomenon occurred in south-central Oklahoma. No it wasn’t a tornado, it was much more rare than that – even during 2009! Suddenly at about 3am CDT in Jefferson County the air temperature became very hot and dry, the temperature shot up to 97 degrees F, literally within minutes. The event that happened is called a Convective Heat Burst, it happens when a parcel of very cold and unsaturated air within a dying storm descends very rapidly and warms due to compression (at a rate of 9.8C per 1,000 meters) and overshoots its equilibrium level and reaches the surface.

22:02Z 3D radar image from KCYS Cheyenne, WY Radar. Notice the yellow lines (precip) wrapping around the updraft. The image below was taken 8 minutes after this radar scan. The tornado was on the ground for over 20 minutes.

Spring-like weather has returned to the Central Plains, but it’s June – not May!

Conditions are finally becoming a bit more favorable across the High Plains for severe weather. However, the past few weeks have been extremely limited due to lack of flow, lack of moisture and you guessed it – lack of quality storms. We had been reduced to being extremely happy with rainbows lately – it’s not what we’re here for, but they still make a great photo!