August 16, 2026 Sunday Tropical Update

This is forecast post number 1005 — Day 228 of 2026.

Day 77 of Atlantic Hurricane Season | Up to 3 Named Storms, ACE = 3

Author: Dr. Ryan Maue (X @RyanWeather X @weathertrader)

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Also, Forecast Canada with some beautiful Arctic views.

Satellite imagery from Squall Cloud.

Not expressed often: The equatorial Niño regions’ SST anomaly will go up as the summer progresses — into the autumn — because the seasonal cycle (climatology) eventually goes downward meaning the warm water reservoir becomes more anomalous because what’s normal is cooling in itself.

While the Eastern Pacific tropics are quite warm, we’re seeing the “heat dome” pattern showing up across the Northeast Atlantic and now spreading outward into the subtropical Atlantic. These SST footprints are due to lack of wind forcing, cloud cover and rain. The atmosphere imprints upon the ocean surface —> creates the memory below.

Cooler air slowly but surely filtering into the Midwest and Great Lakes with 50s showing up.

Widespread 90s and 100s from Texas into the Carolinas with 33 million population at least 100°F

AIFS-ENS 18z does pick up tropical waves in the MDR and many develop enough of a low pressure + circulation to be picked up by the storm tracker. Two major waves that could develop in the 7-10 day range. The next week looks mostly quiet.

ECMWF Ensemble 12z full-physics tracks next 15-days

Looking at the full-physics gives another outlook —> and we see some many ensemble members with hurricanes out of the tropical wave in 7-10 days with more favorable environment in the Western Atlantic — out to sea.

A tropical wave coming off Africa on Wednesday is probably the next best chance for an area of Invest into the weekend.

The cyclonic vorticity from ECMWF 18z does show the tropical wave with a circulation but it’s quite weak … yet survives the trip out of the MDR into the open Atlantic.

Flagship model: ECMWF AIFS 18z —> Integrated Vapor Transport next 10-days

AIFS-Single not too interested in Wednesday’s tropical wave … but another one in 9-10 days off Africa looks more impressive. That’s into August 25/26. Long way down the road.

The heat dome is battled back to the Southwest by a series of strong troughs out of Canada into the Northeast = 70s and 80s rather than 90s across the Great Lakes into the Mid-Atlantic

The previous tropical waves 92L and 94L have “poofed” and are difficult to locate on satellite imagery. A new “very large” wave coming off Africa will likely meet the same fate.

Multiple Atlantic tropical waves but all are barely functioning.

The warmth in the MDR is quickly expanding to carve into the cool <26°C water from the cold Canary Current, so I think any tropical waves that stay below 20°N latitude will have sufficient warm water to develop. Huge area of warmth (above normal SST) in the subtropics and northeast Atlantic.

NASA Dust (GEOS-5) — Saharan Air Layers continue to cruise across the Atlantic doing damage to tropical waves and stabilizing the tropical environment with warmth at lower levels.

Tropical Storm Lala is pulling away from Hawaiian Island chain w/65 mph winds

Lala will continue WNW until a strong mid-latitude trough pulls it northward

Lala still plenty of time and warm water to become a major hurricane

Spaghetti Tracks from Google Deep Mind and ECMWF EPS

Interesting: chance of 2-more storms in the EPAC and another south of Hawaii in next 10-days

Integrated Vapor Transport from ECMWF AIFS 18z

By this weekend, should have our next typhoon the radar.

Ocean Temperatures are actually below normal in the subtropical Western Pacific with cold wakes / upwelling or mixing caused by very large Typhoon Dolphin, and the rest of the monsoon trough that was dragged well north off Japan.

The WPAC will warm back up — still August/September plenty of time to recover the cooler SST back to 28.5º-29º