After a brief lull, the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season is beginning to heat up with the emergence of Tropical Storm Chris in the Western Atlantic, which is now poised to become a hurricane as it skirts just north of the Leeward Islands. Based on its current heading and expected track, it has the potential to impact south Florida.

The third tropical depression of the Atlantic season formed on the evening (local time) of the 31st of July 2006 just to the east of the Leeward Islands. The depression originated from an easterly wave that was propagating westward across the central Atlantic. Although, the initial circulation was somewhat disorganized as a result of atmospheric wind shear, the system managed to strengthen itself into a weak tropical storm the morning of the 1st of August and was given the name Chris. As a result of a ridge of high pressure to the north, Chris moved in a northwest to west-northwest direction, keeping the center just to the north the Leeward Islands.

This image was taken at 23:25 UTC (7:25 pm EDT) 1 August 2006 by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite (known as TRMM) as Chris was about to pass to the northeast of Barbuda. The image shows the horizontal distribution of rain intensity within Chris. Rain rates in the center swath are from the TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR), and rain rates in the outer swath are from the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI). The rain rates are overlaid on infrared (IR) data from the TRMM Visible Infrared Scanner (VIRS). The rain field is fairly compact and shows that Chris is a rather small storm. The center is still poorly defined in this image with no evidence of an eye. Banding features (curvature) are also ill-defined at this stage as the circulation is still in the process of organizing. There are, however, areas of moderate rain (bright green to orange areas) near the center of Chris. These are associated with areas of moderate convection, which can help to spin-up the circulation when they occur near the storm's core. At the time of this image, Chris was a moderate tropical storm with maximum sustained winds reported at 50 knots (58 mph) by the National Hurricane Center. Twelve hours later on the morning of the 2nd, Chris's sustained winds had increased slightly to 55 knots (63 mph) as the storm continued track off to the west north-west just north of the Virgin Islands.

AUGUST 4, 2006 UPDATE Tropical Storm Chris, which had been expected to become a hurricane, weakened and has been downgraded to a tropical depression. The image on the right was made from data received by the TRMM satellite on August 3, 2006 at 1458 UTC and shows a weakening tropical storm with few showers and thunderstorms near the storm center.

ATLA.2006-8-1T2325Z________CHRIS.qt( VERY LARGE Quicktime animation )
ATLA.2006-8-1T2325Z________CHRIS_small.qt ( LARGE Quicktime animation )

TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Images produced by Hal Pierce (SSAI/NASA GSFC) and caption by Steve Lang (SSAI/NASA GSFC).