Hurricane outlooks will start earlier after uptick in activity

The National Hurricane Center will start releasing regular tropical weather updates earlier than usual this year, warning of any potentially dangerous storm systems that could be forming in the Atlantic.

But the agency stopped short of moving up the official start of hurricane season, a date that many look to as the time to be prepared for tropical cyclones to form.

The agency plans to issue what are known as “tropical weather outlooks” every six hours starting the morning of May 15. These include written updates and those all-too-familiar maps showing disturbance locations.

Meteorologists typically issued these only when needed before storm season’s official June 1 start. But there has been “recent increased tropical cyclone activity” in late May, the agency noted in a statement.

Storms have formed before the hurricane season in each of the past six years, said Dennis Feltgen, the National Hurricane Center’s spokesman. Last year, ahead of what would be the busiest season on record, they issued 36 early tropical weather outlooks.

Feltgen said many of those May systems were identified because of better monitoring and a change in 2002 that required “subtropical” cyclones be named along with tropical depressions, tropical storms and hurricanes.

Whether the hurricane season should start earlier because of global warming is “a bit tricky,” said Jim Kossin, a NOAA atmospheric scientist, in an interview posted on the agency’s website. Kossin noted there is not yet strong agreement on how climate change affects storm frequency.

“If there is no clear expectation that global warming increases tropical storm frequency, then there should be no clear expectation that the season will lengthen under global warming,” he said.

Dan Reilly, meteorologist for the local National Weather Service office, encouraged residents in any case to start preparing.

“Now is the time to get ready,” Reilly said. “Build your kit and make your plans now. Because before you know it, we will be in hurricane season.”

Jerry Lara / Staff file photo Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Rockport in August 2017 before going on to wreak more havoc all along the Texas coast.