Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
This year’s hurricane season is quieter than usual, but not by much
If you thought this year’s hurricane season seemed pretty uneventful so far — and that’s a good thing! — you’re right. But the 2019 summer is not lagging too far behind the norm.
“The 2019 Atlantic hurricane season is running a bit behind average, but only by a week or so,” said Dennis Feltgen, spokesman for the Miami-based National Hurricane Center, in an email.
The season’s third named storm, Chantal, developed Tuesday night. That’s seven days later than Aug. 13, the average date of when the season’s third storm usually forms.
“Dry air and westerly wind shear have been factors in inhibiting formation across the main development region of the Caribbean Sea and tropical Atlantic Ocean in recent weeks,” Feltgen said, describing the weather conditions that have been so far keeping cyclone formation behind the average.
Wind shear refers to the variation of wind speed or direction in the atmosphere. It hampers hurricane formation, chopping them apart before they have a chance to organize.
Bryan Norcross, Hurricane Specialist at WPLG-TV/Local 10, offered his take on Facebook as to why the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season has been pleasantly dull so far.
“There is no obvious specific reason why the tropics are not more active,” he said in a post on Tuesday morning, also noting that some factors, like the surface temperatures in the Atlantic, were actually pretty favorable to cyclone formation.
“The oddity is that the atmosphere over the tropical Atlantic is not at all conducive for thunderstorms to develop,” Norcross posted. “If thunderstorms can’t grow, tropical systems can’t develop. Not that we’re complaining.”
The less-than-average activity mirrors some of the seasonal forecasts in recent weeks. The Colorado State University Tropical Meteorology Project also noted the prevalence of vertical wind shear.
So far the tropics have spun out three other cyclones: Subtropical Storm Andrea, Hurricane Barry, and Tropical Depression Three.
While Barry was four weeks ahead of the average date of the appearance of the first hurricane, Aug. 10, the emergence of the second hurricane, on average, doesn’t usually happen until Aug. 28, Feltgen noted.
Meanwhile, a system of showers and thunderstorms currently over the central Bahamas will douse South Florida over the next few days and chances of it turning into a tropical depression within five days increased to 50% Thursday evening, the National Hurricane Center said.
If the system develops into a tropical disturbance and grows into a tropical storm it will be the fourth one in the 2019 hurricane season to get a name. It would be Dorian.
On average, the fourth named storm appears on Aug. 24.
So there’s still time for the season to catch up to the historically average pace of cyclone formation.
So far Hurricane Barry has been the most notable storm of 2019, making landfall on Intracoastal City, La., on July 13 as a Category 1 hurricane. According to AccuWeather it was just the fourth hurricane to strike Louisiana in July.
After Barry, Tropical Depression Three, which stayed in the ocean and traveled northeast off Florida’s east coast toward the Carolinas, was a two-day weather event from July 22 to July 23, bringing some rain to Florida and the Bahamas.
Chantal was still surviving on Wednesday afternoon but was expected to be downgraded to a depression soon, forecasters noted.
But another disturbance over the Bahamas was also being monitored on Wednesday. It was early yet but AccuWeather.com reported there was “some indication that disturbance may evolve into a tropical system somewhere from Florida waters to the Carolina coast” between Sunday and Friday.
But hurricane experts wisely try to hammer the same point home every year: It doesn’t matter how quiet a season has been because it only takes one storm to transform an uneventful hurricane season into a once-in-a-generation catastrophe — the most obvious example being 1992’s Hurricane Andrew.
“Do not get lulled into a false sense of security,” Feltgen said. “There’s a lot of season left. We have now entered the peak of the season, which runs through late October.”