ORLANDO, Fla. – August definitely did its thing in terms of the hurricane season. Thankfully we didn’t see any landfalls, which is always great news to communicate across the board.
We’re rounding out the month busier than we were this time last year. We also had another Category 5 hurricane form pretty early in the season. While not the earliest, it’s still not completely normal to see such explosive development of a tropical wave in the month of August.
Doable? Yes, but is it typically the most likely outcome? Not ordinarily. But the Atlantic and Erin itself performed nonetheless.
Fernand is currently spinning north and northeastward, continuing to better organize and gain some strength as it heads into the North Atlantic. This is another system, even more so than Erin, that will play virtually no role in anyone’s weather regardless of what it does during its lifecycle.
If you take a look at a satellite shot of the Deep Tropics, this is usually closest to Africa in the Main Development Region – things are dry and quiet.
While some may announce this as unusual, it really isn’t. The Atlantic has to bide its time a bit and recharge after Erin zapped a ton of the energy out there.
Think of it like when you hit the gym, or have a hard day,week, or month at work. You need to recoup right? Need some rest and relaxation before you get back to it once again. The Atlantic is doing the exact same thing as we speak.
This break likely won’t last for long. We’re fast approaching the climatological peak of hurricane season. Per the calendar, we hit that mark on Sept. 10. Can you believe we’re already looking at the final days of August? It’ll be fall and spooky season before we know it!!
So right now we head into a suppressed phase of the hurricane season. You’ve probably read it a few times over if you’ve kept up with the tropics alongside us here at News 6, but the MJO has now shifted further east into a spot that adds sinking motions and drier air to our corner of the world.
Pressures are starting to rise closer to the coast of Africa, in the eastern Atlantic.
We’re seeing more dry air being pumped off the coast of Northwest Africa and Europe, straight into the path where our tropical waves would typically being moving.
Lastly, if you look at Africa, you’ll notice that hearty “wave train” hasn’t gone silent entirely but it’s looking a little worse for wear. Nothing nearly as robust or active as we saw earlier this month.
This recovery phase isn’t going to take its time. Global computer models are already reigniting the action by the time we get just beyond the Labor Day holiday. We could take as late as the first 7-10 days of September before we get a legitimate feature on the board, but some forecast models actually show a potential as early as the first couple days of the new month.
We could see some new areas of interest highlighted by National Hurricane Center as early as the beginning of the month. If there is a bit of a lag in activity, it won’t be too long after that.
Naturally it is far too early to even make an attempt at where any of these future features will go, but that shouldn’t be the key takeaway here.
As Dr. Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University has echoed in previous discussions and conversations, the higher amount of storms you have active in the basin generally you have a much higher probability of receiving one before things die down.
So while we’re into this lull, take one last glance at your preparedness items, your plans, and your important belongings, just in case something does try to work its way in our direction. Peak hurricane season never fails to throw some curveballs at us.
Check back with your News 6 weather team on a recurring basis for all things tropical as we gear up to ride out the second half of the season together.