Hurricane season officially runs from June 1st - November 30th each year. This of course can be incredibly impactful for those that travel to beaches along the Gulf coast and the Atlantic coast for vacations during the summer and fall months.
Well, hurricane season started over 2 months ago and...there hasn't been a lot going on in Atlantic Basin. We've only had 4 named storms (as of August 5th), and none have made US landfall as hurricanes.
So...what's up? Well this is the slowest start to hurricane season in the Atlantic Basin since 2009. That's a good thing of course if you have plans along the beach, but does it mean that this hurricane season is a dud? Not at all!
While we're off to a slow start, the tropics are just now heating up historically. You can see the number of hurricanes/tropical storms greatly increases during the "peak" of hurricane season which is around mid-August through mid-October. The official "peak" is September 10th.
Image: NOAA
With data from NOAA, we can learn that 80% of named storms formed after August 1st, along with 90% of hurricanes and 96% of major (Cat 3+) hurricanes forming after that date.
Tracking the tropics (current)
As of August 5th, our 4th named storm of the year, Dexter, formed in the Atlantic Ocean and is currently a Tropical Storm. Dexter will not be affecting the US, and will be what we call a "fish storm" and stay out in the ocean before it dissipates.
The NHC is highlighting two more areas of potential development over the next week. One area is just off the East coast and has a 40% of forming within the next week, with the other being out in the Atlantic coming off Africa. This disturbance has a 50% chance of forming over the next week.
We still have a lot of hurricane season left, and if history tells us anything, it is just beginning to ramp up.
