Saharan Dust and upper shear are suppressing tropical cyclone development now. The environment supporting tropical cyclone development improves by the middle third of August. Hurricanes threatening the U.S. Coast, primarily Florida, is indicated by ECMWF for the last third of August.

In June, the climate pattern just east of the Canadian Rocky Mountains and across much of the Canadian Prairies turned somewhat drier than normal. The June pattern was quite cool. In July, the dryness expands and intensifies.

A major drought is in-place across Southeast Europe and Western Turkey. Drought ALERT is widespread in these areas according to the Europe Drought Observatory (EDO). The NOAA/CPC daily soil moisture analysis identifies the Southeast Europe drought extension to Southwest Russia including most of the Black Sea region.

During the past few weeks, Saharan Dust propelled west and southwestward from Northwest Africa by easterly trade winds has increased. Visible satellite images from earlier today easily identify the dust clouds as light gray east of the Caribbean Sea.