Tropical Rainstorm 5 may sound like some kind of new pop song, but it is having people in southeastern Louisiana dancing to avoid growing areas of standing water as heavy rainfall marshes the region. While the tropical rainstorm recently lost its depression designation upon nearing the upper Gulf Coast, it is still a danger for heavy rainfall and flash flooding.

Over 1 inch of rain has fallen on parts of southeastern Louisiana, including the Big Easy thus far. Four to eight times that rainfall may drench the region through the end of the week.

The system is still strong enough to raise rich Gulf moisture skyward. In turn, the tall clouds generated by the lifting will unleash wet rain from showers and locally gusty thunderstorms. People are reminded not to force through flooded roadways. Keep children from playing near catch basins, which will be puffy from the rain and runoff.

With several aircraft already planning to swarm around hurricanes this year, yet another one will be dispatched to help scientists solve a large mystery: Why do some clusters of thunderstorms grow into hurricanes while many others dissipate? The results could help the National Hurricane Center extend its long-range forecasts from five to seven days.

So says the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a non-profit research center based in Boulder, Colo. “There are clusters of thunderstorms every day in the tropics, but we don’t know why some of them develop into hurricanes while others don’t,” Christopher Davis, one of the lead NCAR scientists, said.

Under a project called PREDICT, NCAR plans to deploy a Gulfstream G-V high-altitude jet from St. Croix in the Virgin Islands when storms pop up during the height of the hurricane season. The PREDICT plane will join others on a similar mission.

The Atlantic Basin remains on track for an active hurricane season, according to the scheduled seasonal outlook update issued today by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Weather Service. With the season’s peak just around the corner – late August through October – the need for preparedness plans is essential.

NOAA also announced today that, as predicted last spring, La Niña has formed in the tropical Pacific Ocean. This favors lower wind shear over the Atlantic Basin, allowing storm clouds to grow and organize.

Other climate factors pointing to an active hurricane season are warmer-than-average water in the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean, and the tropical multi-decadal signal, which since 1995 has brought favorable ocean and atmospheric conditions in unison, leading to more active seasons.

NASA Satellite imagery has indicated that the low pressure area in the eastern Pacific Ocean that forecasters are watching for possible development is slow to grow.

Visible imagery from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-11 captured on July 30 at 1530 UTC (11:30 a.m. EDT) showed the low as a comma-shaped area of clouds off of the west Central American coast. GOES satellites are operated by NOAA. The NASA GOES Project, located at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. creates imagery and animations using data from the GOES series of satellites.

The broad area of low pressure that forecasters are watching is centered about 500 miles south of the Gulf of Tehuantepec. The low continues to produce showers and thunderstorms as it moves westward and west-northwestward at around 10 mph. The National Hurricane Center expects that any further development of this low pressure area will be slow, and gives the low a 20 percent chance of becoming a tropical cyclone over the weekend.

Lightning strikes more than 400 people in the United States each year, causing devastating and permanent disabilities for those who survive. As NOAA’s National Weather Service hosts the 10th national Lightning Safety Awareness Week June 20-26, everyone is urged to heed this warning - when thunder roars go indoors!

The annual lightning safety campaign is helping to reduce the number of deaths caused by lightning each year.  Lighting Safety Awareness Week, first launched in 2000 to educate people about the danger of lightning, has helped reduce annual lighting deaths from about 72 to 58.

“While we have seen a decrease in deaths, many people still wait too long to seek shelter,” said Donna Franklin, NOAA’s Lightning Safety Team Leader. “Lightning has already struck and killed eight people this year so we’re continuing our strong push to educate people not to go outdoors during a thunderstorm.”

The tropics remain void of any recent cyclones, but there are a few areas that are being watched for development in the Atlantic and Pacific.

The Atlantic has a couple of areas that are being observed for development. One is a tropical wave in the Caribbean is producing some confused showers and storms. The other is an region of low pressure in the Central Atlantic about 700 miles southwest of the Cape Verde Islands. Neither of these areas is supposed to develop into a tropical cyclone (either a tropical depression or tropical storm) in the next couple of days. Some computer models recommend that the low in the Central Atlantic may develop early next week.

In the Eastern Pacific, there is a disorganized area of low pressure a few hundred miles south of the Gulf of Tehuantepec that is producing some spell of rains and thunderstorms. It has become better prearranged somewhat during the overnight hours; however, it is only expected to develop slowly in the next couple of days.

The term hurricane has its origin in the indigenous religions of past civilizations. The Mayan storm god was named Hunraken. A god considered evil by the Taino people of the Caribbean was called Huracan.

Hurricanes may not be considered evil but they are one of nature’s most powerful storms. Their potential for loss of life and destruction of property is tremendous. Those in hurricane-prone areas need to be prepared for hurricanes and tropical storms.

Even inland areas, well away from the coastline, can experience destructive winds, tornadoes and floods from tropical storms and hurricanes.

Hurricane Alex, which smashed over the Gulf of Mexico, last week, was the first June hurricane in the Atlantic basin for 15 years.

In the Gulf of Mexico last week a huge storm was distilling, as rapidly warming surface waters hit the critical temperature of 80.6F (27C). Powered by heat transference from the sea surface, cyclones like Hurricane Alex rampage across the coastal regions of the southern states each summer. But this year Alex, and the storms that will follow, make threats to bring extra misery, spreading the huge oil slick further and wider from the stricken Deepwater Horizon rig.

Alex, the first hurricane of the season and the first June hurricane in the Atlantic basin for 15 years – is the last thing clean-up staff need as they resist to contain the disaster.

The spinning, counterclockwise drama plays out across TV screens all summer long. Satellite images show a tropical depression forming off the coast of Africa, and the people at home invariably ask the same question as the forecasters and the scientists: Will it or won’t it become a hurricane?

This August and September, NASA is leading an aircraft campaign that will provide a sustained and unprecedented look at the inner workings of hurricane formation and intensification. The Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) experiment will take place from Aug. 15 to Sept. 30 and employ three NASA aircraft flying over the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea to try to answer some of the basic but still lingering questions about how and why hurricanes form and strengthen.
NASA has flown over hurricanes before to gather data on precipitation, winds, convection, temperature and other factors that are known cyclone ingredients. The logistical demands of doing so have only allowed for two to four hours of data collection at a time, a snapshot of a storm that could spin for days. But for the first time, scientists will fly an unmanned drone, outfitted with 3-D radar, a microwave radiometer and other instruments over tropical systems for up to 20 consecutive hours.

Most people associate twisters with tornadoes, but in fact tropical twisters come from hurricanes. Hurricanes are what scientists call “strong Tropical Cyclones”.

They are formed when large areas of the ocean become heated, and the air pressure over that area drops. This causes thunderstorms and strong surface winds. Cyclones develop over tropical or sub-tropical waters (for example, in the Atlantic off the coast of Africa, or in the Pacific).

As they travel long distances gathering energy from the ocean, they are likely to be classified as strong Tropical Cyclones. When the winds of a tropical storm reach 74 mph, then the storm is classified as a hurricane.