Tropical Storm Josephine (2020)

Storm Active: August 11-16

On August 8, another member of the train of tropical waves exited Africa. It moved more slowly to the west than its July predecessors that became named storms; this is typical as trade winds lessen toward the end of summer. The next day, a broad low-pressure center formed. The disturbance surrounding the low was rather large and the center itself was initially elongated. Gradually, it overcame these obstacles and developed a concentrated blob of thunderstorm activity. By late on August 10, its only issue was wind shear out of the east, resulting in convection displaced north and west. Some new blow ups near the center on August 11 remedied this enough for the system to be classified Tropical Depression Eleven that afternoon.

Nighttime brought with it more thunderstorm activity, but there was little evidence of banding features until the morning of the 12th, when a spiral band developing looping outward north and east from the center. At the same time, wind shear lessened, but the storm had trouble maintaining persistent convection. Overnight, it turned west-northwest, and on August 13 was upgraded to Tropical Storm Josephine, the new earliest "J" storm. It claimed that record from Jose of 2005, which was named on August 22. Despite the upgrade, the storm spent most of the next couple days as a formless blob of convection. Also, the center likely reformed to the north during the day of August 14, sending the storm on a more northwest trajectory in the short-term.

Josephine made its closest approach to the Lesser Antilles on August 15, but it stayed far enough north that there were minimal impacts, especially since the storm had little rain in its southwest quadrant. Wind shear increased even more that day and set the storm on a weakening trend. During the morning of August 16, it was downgraded to a tropical depression, and shortly after it degenerated into a trough of low pressure. The remnants of Josephine brought some rain to Bermuda a little while after.

Josephine was a relatively small cyclone, shown above on August 13.

The tropical storm traveled over warm ocean waters its whole lifetime, but strong wind shear prevented significant strengthening and ultimately caused Josephine's demise.