May and June saw quite a bit of tropical activity – Bonnie, Colin and Danielle – and then came to a screeching halt in July, a partial outcome of Saharan dust over the Atlantic that impeded hurricane development by sucking up moisture from the atmosphere that would otherwise serve as fuel for storms.
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is calling for a higher likelihood of an “above normal” hurricane season. No hurricanes have made landfall on USA soil yet, but tropical storm Bonnie did hit SC over Memorial Day Weekend.
The federal agency on Thursday released its usual updated hurricane outlook for the season and are now predicting 12-17 named storms, five to eight hurricanes including two to four that could become major hurricanes.
“Don’t bank your course of action”, she said, on whether a season is deemed low, medium or high.
Bell said a number of forces are influencing the raised expectations, such as El Nino ending and weaker trade winds, among others.
The May outlook indicated at that time that “the climate signals that influence the formation of Atlantic storms make predicting this season particularly hard”.
One question mark included the potential intensity and impacts of La Niña, the flip side of El Niño, which creates more favorable conditions for storms to develop.
Those conditions, he said, could also prevent a strong La Niña, a cool weather pattern that normally inhibits storms and which NOAA forecasters said Thursday would likely form during the season.
So far, the Atlantic season has produced five named storms.
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The Atlantic hurricane season technically runs from June 1 to November 30.
