Next Week may be Interesting
08:45 AM EDT - 11 July 2001
Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-104 s a launch for the International Space Station scheduled tomorrow, the first with the new Block II style engines. Weather could be a factor today and tomorrow, so it could be pushed back until Friday, July 13. Along with the new engines the Moroccan emergency landing site will be nonfunctional too (due to threats). I for one hope the weather and rain holds off enough for it to get off tomorrow fine.
It's still blasé this week as far as storms, but it doesn't mean there is nothing to watch out for. I give you the wave near 40 degrees west...
Ok, so what does this mean? Well not much in the immediate future, however, when you couple it with dropping fronts as this may approach Florida sometime next week, then you will have to watch. If this thing does anything it won't be any time soon. (However I could be surprised) It will be the thing to watch the next few days and over the weekend and especially into next week for us here. The Caribbean should be on the watch too in case the environment does become more favorable for development.
If it does develop I don't expect it to be soon (can't rule that out, though), and it's more likely that it won't, but here's the scale anyway.
(forget it) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (sure thing)
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The MRF is the one that does the most with it, but still its a little far off to speculate. I do think it will need to be watched.
The tell tale sign though is to watch for persistence of the thunderstorm activity in the wave.
Michael Bryson (creator of the Stormtrakker Hurricane Tracking Software, and who runs a pretty good site for original graphics) has moved his webpage and is now at