Tropical Storm Otto

October 7th, 2010 at 1:18 am by Bill Steffen under Bill's Blog, Weather

Tropical Storm Otto has formed. Here’s the path the storm will take, which will be well out to see.  Paula will likely form next week.  The storms this year have, for the most part, missed the U.S.   There has been significant flooding in Mexico (from “Alex” and “Matt”), but overall, North America has been lucky this season so far.  The number and strength of tropical activity has declined significantly since the Katrina year of 2005 which you can see in this graph.  Here’s the global sea surface temperature anomaly map.  The La Nina (blue = colder than average water along the Equator in the Pacific) sure stands out.  Note the cooler water in the SW Gulf of Mexico and in the mid-Atlantic where recent hurricanes have stirred the water and cooled the surface.   Certainly colder than average water off the West Coast from L.A. down past the Baja Peninsula.