Of bigger interest to me now is Ana in the central Pacific. Yes, a tropical storm way out past the atolls of the open Pacific.
TS Ana forecast track showing it heading towards the Pacific Northwest in several days

TS Ana forecast track showing it heading towards the Pacific Northwest in several days

I took a look at the track map, embedded here in the blog, and thought, hmmm, what if it were to get back all the way to the west coast of the United States as an ex-tropical cyclone? I took at look at the GFS and sure enough, it shows that scenario happening! It’s six days out in time but the storm transitions in to a potent non-tropical storm system over the north Pacific and slams in to Washington and Oregon next week. The implications are that we could see very heavy precip, strong winds and a coastal wave event that could lead to issues along the immediate shoreline.

This is going to be something to watch in the coming days. It’s far enough out in time to know that things could change quite a bit but the chance is at least there that an ex-Pacific hurricane could lead to serious weather issues for a big population area of the northwest U.S. down the road. I’ll have more on this each day over the next several days.