Gosh, it’s been hot.  Over 100 every day this week.  Such temps are unheard of in Louisiana.   I think we’ve set records for highs for the past three or four days.

So where do we look for relief this time of the year?  The Gulf of Mexico.   Not for tropical storms or hurricanes, of course, but for polite southerly winds and gentle tropical waves that produce those garden-variety showers that keep the plants lush, the humidity stifling, and the mosquitoes breeding. 

Nothing like that coming yet.  My assistant’s husband called her from offshore earlier today and told her he’s never seen the Gulf as glassy smooth as it is in this heat wave.  Such smooth sailing offshore means no tropical disturbances in sight.

Such smooth sailing, coupled with the searing heat, does mean the sea surface temperatures must be gaining nicely.   The “bathwater” conditions in the Gulf usually don’t arrive until the cumulative effect of the summer sun works on the waters for the entire season, but with this brutal heat and with the waters so calm, the bathwater conditions may materialize before the peak of the tropical season.

If tropical systems stay away, that’s fine.  We can manage.  But if the systems don’t stay away, they’ll have explosive heat energy to lap up from the tepid wInvest 93aters.  So how interesting that today, we receive the first suggesiton of a tropical system entering the Gulf: Behold what the Hurricane Center has labeled Invest 93, with sights potentially aimed at the central Gulf of Mexico some time next week, where all that bath water is heating up.