Hurricane Season: August Expectations

The National Hurricane Center will release it’s updated seasonal forecast this Thursday and we’ll see what forecasters believe the effect El Nino will have on the rest of the season.

Today, the forecast team at Colorado State University’s Tropical Meteorology Project releases an updated forecast for the last two-thirds of the season.

The Maritimes have been relatively unscathed so far this year by tropical storms, but a meteorologist says the region must remain on the lookout for severe weather for a few more months.

The change to the forecast number of hurricanes has reduced the ACE forecast down to the low-level of 40 for the entire season.

A strong El Niño as well as “continued unfavorable hurricane formation conditions in the tropical Atlantic” are the main culprits behind the below-average forecast for the season, which runs from June 1 to November 30. Of those eight named storms, researchers expect two to become hurricanes and one to reach major hurricane strength (Saffir/Simpson category 3-4-5) with sustained winds of 111 miles per hour or greater. El Niño, a climate pattern that affects weather worldwide, “is characterized by unusually warm temperatures” in the tropical Pacific, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The probability of a major hurricane making landfall on the U.S. East Coast including the Florida panhandle is 12%, compared with a full-season average for the last century of 31%, according top to the report. In their first forecast in April, they predicted 7 named storms, of which three would be hurricanes.

The site provides information for all coastal states as well as 11 regions and 205 individual counties along the U.S. coastline from Brownsville, Texas, to Eastport, Maine.

The below-average forecast is due to a combination of factors.

An area of low pressure near the Carolina coast has a 30 percent chance of developing into a tropical depression or storm in the next day or so.

Historically the most active part of the hurricane season is late August through to October and the way the tropics are looking we may have to wait some time before we see any activity of note.