Forecast revised to ‘very, very active’ hurricane season
The average Atlantic hurricane season creates 12 named storms. But this year, 2020, is anything but average.
There have already been 11 named storms at the (almost) halfway point, and three “disturbances” are currently being tracked. One of these might be headed toward Texas, though it’s too early to know for sure.
With mid-August through October being the historical peak for storms, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently upped its forecast to as many as 25 named storms before the 2020 season ends Nov. 30.
“We’re looking already at a very, very active season so far,” said Isha Renta, a National Weather Service forecaster. “And as we head into the peak of the hurricane season, which is upcoming in the next month, we can definitely expect more activity.”
In May, NOAA had forecast up to 19 named storms.
There are several factors contributing to this especially active season, Renta said. First, there’s a possible La Niña developing in the next couple of months. La Niña condition occurs when surface water in the equatorial regions of the eastern Pacific Ocean becomes cooler than normal.
La Niña can enhance hurricane activity in the Atlantic, whereas the opposite condition, El Niño, helps to suppress hurricane activity.
There are also warmerthan-normal surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, which acts as fuel for hurricanes. And the west African monsoon is above average, meaning tropical waves coming from Africa into the Caribbean are going to be stronger.
“We’re looking into different factors that are coming together for this season,” Renta said, “(which is) expected to be one of the most active ones.”
It’s the warmer sea tem
peratures that’s most concerning for Jim Blackburn, co-director of the Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters Center at Rice University. He said heat in the water can lead to the massive intensification of storms.
“(Hurricane) Harvey almost went away over the Yucatán Peninsula,” Blackburn said, “and then reemerged in the Bay of Campeche and intensified almost overnight from a tropical system to a Cat 4 storm. That rapid intensification is what really worries me.”
He said the sheer number of this year’s named storms means the number of big storms could increase. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Weather Service, is forecasting 19 to 25 named storms, of which seven to 11 could become hurricanes including three to six major hurricanes with winds of 111 mph or greater.
Of the 11 named storms thus far, only two have become hurricanes
(Hanna and Isaias). The rest have been tropical storms.
The National Hurricane Center was tracking three disturbances as of Wednesday at 1 p.m. CDT. One of these, over the central Caribbean Sea, is on a trajectory that has historically led storms toward Texas. It could become a tropical depression later this week.
Based on past storms, Blackburn said storms that move between the Yucatán Peninsula — which has parts of Mexico, Belize and Guatemala — and Cuba have “a higher likelihood of coming into the Texas coast with that type
of trajectory.”
The National Weather Service office for Houston and Galveston said this disturbance is still very weak and disorganized.
“(It’s) highly uncertain where it heads, anywhere from Mexico to Louisiana,” a National Weather Service email said. “The southern track across the Yucatán and towards Mexico/South Texas appears more likely. This system would near the coast in the Tuesday/Wednesday time frame (next week).”
Another of the disturbances, east of the Windward Islands as of 1 p.m. CDT Wednesday, was more likely to curve up into the northeast Gulf of Mexico and Florida region in the middle of next week, the email said.
Ultimately, there are 21 names selected for storms this hurricane season. If there are more than 21 storms with winds of at least 39 mph, which most recently happened in 2005 with 27 named storms, they are named using the Greek alphabet — Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, etc.