A Surprising Lull in Atlantic Hurricane Season Is Showing Signs of Ending
(Bloomberg) -- After a ferocious start to hurricane season, the Atlantic has gone eerily quiet just when nature usually delivers some of its most powerful storms. But signs are emerging that the respite is almost over.
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An area of low pressure could form in the central portion of the tropical Atlantic over the next week, according to the US National Hurricane Center. While it’s too early to say whether it will strengthen, the system has a 20% chance of becoming a tropical depression, or even the sixth named storm of the season.
All the ingredients for supercharged hurricane activity are there. As climate change roils weather patterns around the world, exceptionally hot ocean temperatures have already helped spawn deadly Hurricanes Beryl and Debby. Storm-ripping wind shear — winds blowing at different strengths or directions at varying altitudes — has been low. The African monsoon, which can give rise to hurricanes in the Atlantic, has been strong.
What’s different this year is that the African monsoon has actually moved a bit farther north. This has unleashed more wind shear across the eastern Atlantic, while at the same time dragging dry air into the region, said Phil Klotzbach, lead author of the Colorado State University seasonal hurricane forecast. Colorado State is predicting 23 named storms this season, well above the average of 14.
If nothing happens over the next few days, it will be only the fifth time since 1966 — when satellites started watching the ocean — that there have been no storms between Aug. 21 and Sept. 2, Klotzbach said.
“It’s been quiet out there in the Atlantic,” Klotzbach said in an email interview. “I certainly wasn’t expecting this when we put out our most recent seasonal forecast.”
In the coming weeks, however, the monsoon is expected to retreat to a more optimal zone for storm formation.
“Most of the large-scale conditions that we anticipated for the season are still in play, so overall, we’re still expecting a very busy season, albeit a bit later than we had anticipated,” Klotzbach said. “It is too early to bail on the season just yet.”
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