WORLD’S MAJOR HURRICANES TAKE AN EERIE PAUSE

After another particularly busy hurricane season in the Atlantic that exhausted the National Hurricane Center’s list of “conventional” storm names, the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season flatlined the second week of October. While Tropical Storm Wanda did briefly interrupt the quiescent interlude at the start of November, the Atlantic has been silent since Nov. 7.

It’s not just the Atlantic that’s been eerily quiet. All across the world, the tropics have been devoid of significant cyclone activity. Not a single hurricane-strength storm has formed anywhere on the planet since Oct. 29, a calm occupying the Northern and Southern hemispheres. That’s happened only twice before since 1966, according to Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University.

Perhaps the most bizarre feat has been the lack of major hurricane-strength storms, Category 3 or higher, worldwide since Sept. 25. The absence of storms of this intensity at this time of year hasn’t occurred in at least 65 years. It includes Atlantic and northeast Pacific hurricanes, typhoons in the northwest Pacific and tropical cyclones in the Indian Ocean.

The sudden dearth of these powerhouse storms comes after a feverish start to the Atlantic hurricane season, which stalled in October.

The Atlantic season peaked in late August as Hurricane Ida made a run at Category 5 strength while lashing southeastern Louisiana with catastrophic wind gusts exceeding 240 km/h. The storm laid siege to areas 50 miles south of New Orleans, including Grand Isle and Port Fourchon, which were underwater for a time. Ida eventually weakened farther inland and moved up the East Coast as a remnant rainstorm, dumping record moisture in the northeast that killed more than 40 as extreme flooding gripped southern New England, New York City and Philadelphia.

Of the various ocean basins supporting tropical storms, the Atlantic is the only one to see above-average activity this year. Ordinarily, the oceans sort of balance out because an increase in hurricane activity and rising air in one basin would probably be tied to sinking motion and reduced storm chances elsewhere. The northeastern Pacific is 29 per cent behind average in regards to ACE, with a 38 per cent deficit in the northwestern Pacific.