This summer's weather has been a little weird for many people across the world.
Record breaking heat and rainfall combined with a cooler start to the season has made conditions a little difficult to follow at times. It seems as if there is a different weather-related disaster in the news each week.
One weather phenomena that has not made the news very frequently this summer, however, is hurricanes.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) devotes special attention to hurricane season as hurricanes can be both devastating and informational. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, the same one that provides seasonal temperature and precipitation outlooks for the entire United States, provides a yearly hurricane season prediction late in the spring. These predictions pull from a plethora of data and are used to serve as an initial warning factor for coastal areas.
This year's hurricane forecast was on trend for the predictions of nearly the last decade. For the seventh consecutive year, it was predicted hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean would be above normal. In detail, it was predicted that there would be a 65 percent chance of this hurricane season being above normal, a 25 percent chance of a near-normal season, and 10 percent chance of a below-normal season. Breaking down these percentages, that comes to between 14 and 21 storms with three to six of those storms being major hurricanes.
So far this summer, there have been three named storms in the Atlantic Ocean, none of which intensified to hurricane status.
So was NOAA's prediction a bust?
I would not venture to say so just yet. It is important to remember hurricane season for the Atlantic Ocean runs from early June until late November. Keeping that in mind, we are only halfway through the normal timeframe when hurricanes occur. In fact, hurricane season typically peaks around September.
By the end of August, we will have only gone through three named storms: Alex, Bonnie and Colin. The next storms to be named will be dubbed Danielle, Earl, Fiona and Gaston. This naming pattern will continue with a traditional female then male name pattern until the end of the alphabet is reached. If more storms occur, then an alternative list will be used.
These last few hurricane seasons have been strong to start out in the early summer, but this season is not worth discounting yet. All it takes is for one storm to intensify and make landfall in order for there to be a widespread impact. It is also important to know that even if a tropical storm or a hurricane does not make landfall does not mean it was obsolete.
Storms over open water will disrupt shipping patterns and put sailors at risk.
Maddie Est has worked as a broadcast meteorologist and marine meteorologist since graduating from the University of Missouri in 2021. She has worked with the Missouri Climate Center and conducted research on atmospheric blocking while at MU.