Quiet Hurricane Season on the Horizon?
2018-08-10 16:35:16.000 – Tom Padham, Weather Observer/Education Specialist
With the month of August underway we’re heading into the peak of hurricane season, but it’s looking more likely that this year will overall be a down year for tropical systems (not a bad thing necessarily!). So what’s the reasoning for this? NOAA recently updated their seasonal outlook for the tropics (article here) explaining some of their reasoning.
In addition to this, dust from the Saharan Desert has been pretty extensive in the mid levels of the atmosphere reaching from west Africa all the way into the Gulf of Mexico at times. This has acted to suppress convection (thunderstorms) needed for the development and organization of tropical systems. This happens somewhat frequently during the summer and fall each year, this year has just been more active than most and is adding to the other factors above.
Even with the prospect of a more quiet remainder of the hurricane season, we shouldn’t let our guard down as a single land falling storm can cause catastrophic damage. In the event of any sort of emergency, be it from mother nature or otherwise, it’s always important to have a plan. https://www.ready.gov/make-a-plan is a great resource for putting together a plan and emergency kit.
Tom Padham, Weather Observer/Education Specialist
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