26 June 2002

Next wave of TC activity over the western North Pacific?

As of this morning (26 Jun 00UTC), no sign of any organized convection can be found east of the Philippines.  And yet, the ECMWF forecasts from 23 Jun 12 UTC valid for 29 Jun shows a low developing at around 140E (see Fig. 1), which is predicted to intensify further the next day (Fig. 2).  The forecasts from 25 Jun 12 UTC are even more amazing (Figs. 3-7).  You can see from the attached figures that two TCs are predicted to develop by Sunday 30 Jun (Fig. 5).  Furthermore, by 2 Jul, both TCs are predicted to have maximum winds of over 40 m/s (Fig. 7).  I wonder if predictions of this sort of intensity are because of the high resolution of the model - maybe Mike Fiorino can comment on this.

I have been discussing these forecasts with Julian Heming of the UK Met Office and he said that the UK model also made similar predictions.  So it looks like the western North Pacific is likely to enter a TC-active period, after the last TC Hagabis in May (Noguri doesn't count since it developed along the monsoon trough over the South China Sea).  And the time difference is about a month - any comment on the possibility of relating this activity to the MJO?

If these predictions turn out to be correct, does it mean that we can now rely on these high-resolution model predictions for genesis (and perhaps even intensity)?

Fig. 1.