Wednesday, the 24th,
the National hurricane center issued its first
tropical weather outlook for a disturbance.
And I know we're not quite to the start of the hurricane season yet. It's June 1.
So we still have several weeks
as I'm
putting this story together. But I want you to know
we can and
sometimes do get tropical systems that develop out of season.
Now this particular disturbance, it went away. It's not a threat to us.
I don't want you to worry about that,
but it got me thinking about early season or preseason development.
And if that's maybe a canary in the coal mine
may be a sign of what could be to come an early warning
for tropical activity during the season.
So looking back since 2003,
there have been 15 tropical systems that have formed before June 1st.
Most of those 11 of them developed during the months of May
two formed in April and we had two form. Would you believe in January?
Talk about being out of season?
One of those went on to become a hurricane hurricane Alex,
but we're gonna talk about what had developed in April that happened in two years,
2003 and 2017.
Now, 2003 very active season, we had 16 name systems, seven hurricanes,
three major hurricanes.
The strongest hurricane that season was Isabel.
It was at one time, a category five hurricane
and Isabel delivered an absolutely devastating blow to Hampton roads.
It's the hardest
that Hampton roads has been hit in recent memory.
That was in 03,
you go to 2017.
Last time we had an April named storm system and
that was the first time we saw three cat,
four hurricanes
hit the US. We had Harvey, we had Irma and we had Maria coming into Puerto Rico.
So when we've had named systems in April,
we have had some pretty rough hurricane seasons.
We haven't had one so far in April
when you start seeing the hurricane center identifying areas
and there are a couple of other things in play as well.
It kind of gets you thinking, ok. Are we in for a really active season?
Let's take a look.
You know, typically the season ramps up begins June 1,
we get the peak of the hurricane season right around September 10th or so,
September 10th 11th.
And after that, things go down,
the reason we're more concerned this year versus last year is last year,
we had an El Nino in place
and when we have an El Nino, the global weather patterns change a little bit.
One of the benefits of having an El Nino is that we have a lot of
vertical wind shear and there's less hurricanes that
are able to develop in the Atlantic Basin.
So a lot of what does start to develop kind of gets blown away.
That was last year with the El Nino. Ok.
This year,
the El Nino is trans positioning to a neutral phase and is expected to go to La Nina.
And when we get a La Nina,
it's the opposite effect for our hurricane potential.
You take a look, we have weaker winds here, trade winds and more instability.
It all comes into play to support the development of more hurricanes.
You couple that with
record warm sea surface temperatures.
I mean, we already have areas into the eighties in the Gulf of Mexico,
mid eighties
and even warmer in some spots down through the Caribbean.
And that extends all the way across the Atlantic, these warm waters,
they're gonna be with us.
They're already here in February.
The water temperatures were more typical of what you would expect
in June
and they're just getting warmer.
So we have to take a look and say, I know the calendar says April,
but the potential is there for at least
June or possibly July development of tropical systems.
These are some of the prime breeding grounds in month of
June and then it kind of runs across the Caribbean and
extends farther to the east across the Atlantic Basin as we
go later in the season into late July and August.
You take a look at the hurricane names here. You have a list of 21
Colorado State University. They are forecasting 23 name storms.
So a very, very active season is anticipated.
Everybody looking at these signs and saying, yeah,
it looks like it's gonna be a very, very active season.
My advice,
stay updated on all the developments and the best way to do that is watching 13 news.
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