Thoughts on 2013 Atlantic Hurricane Season

[CYCLONE MIKE]

Decided to start this thread since there has been a lot of discussion in the chantal and dorian threads about the peak of season, if it will be very active or not. Conditions have been horrible and continue to look that way. Shear, shear, and more shear. Tons of dry and stable air all around. And of course our persistent east coast troughs and fronts that are making it down to the gulf coast every week. And yes I know conditions can and will change but they will not do it over night.

So who thinks things are looking much better than the preseason forecasts for the gulf and east coasts. I for one am leaning that way. I'm also talking about quality over quantity. 15 minimal tropical storms is just for making the forecast numbers look good.

[Caribwxgirl]

Well I just have this gut feeling this season is going to see a few strong storms and hurricanes. This is not backed by any science or meteorological study, I just get the feeling these so called "dud" storms are there to let us take our guard down then whoosh out of nowhere the systems will spike. Like I said not backed by any sound analysis

[hurricaneCW]

This happens every year, it's still July, like calm down. If in two weeks its still like this with nothing in sight then maybe ill bite.

[tolakram]

I don't know what your last sentence means.

I think weather conditions will change over the next few weeks, as they usually do when we go into mid summer. I don't think we will ever see a season like 2005 again, which had good conditions most of the year. In a normal season conditions are pretty bleak until mid August, and right now I don't think we know what the future holds yet. If we get to the end of August with no pattern change then I think it will be safe to assume the season will be much less active than anticipated.

Personally, I don't like the numbers game. It's ludicrous and as time goes on I think this will be more and more obvious. If we only have 5 storms in a season and they are all majors, would that be a slow season?

Many people seemed to have made the mistaken assumption that a busy season will look like a slow 2005 with lots of early season storms. That's not the case, and I don't think we'll ever see that again in our lifetime. What this means is that in every July and early August the season cancel threads will pop up due to wimpy activity.

My opinion:

A busy season IMO is a lot of storms crammed into the peak, with a few Caribbean storms added for late in the season. In addition, in order to experience a real increased US threat the Cape Verde season has to be below normal, resulting in more waves getting into the Caribbean and US.

So based on all of that, at this point in the season, I'm still expecting above normal activity with a significant landfall threat to the US.

The posts in this forum are NOT official forecast and should not be used as such. They are just the opinion of the poster and may or may not be backed by sound meteorological data. They are NOT endorsed by any professional institution or storm2k.org. For official information, please refer to the NHC and NWS products.

[cycloneye]

I am only going to say that the main inhibitor for any Atlantic season is El Nino factor that will not be present during the peak months of August,September and October and that alone guarantees an active season.


The posts in this forum are NOT official forecast and should not be used as such. They are just the opinion of the poster and may or may not be backed by sound meteorological data. They are NOT endorsed by any professional institution or storm2k.org. For official information, please refer to the NHC and NWS products.

[galaxy401]

We see this every season...whether the season will be as active as people have been saying. It's still July and we have four storms already at this point. I remember when people were saying 2010 was going to be a quiet season (I was lurking this forum back then).

Still need to prepare for the heart of the season. One storm could surprise us all and highlight the season...

[CalmBeforeStorm]

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/climo/images/peakofseason.gif
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I guess we need to post this graph every year.

For all of you people that have followed every area of disturbed weather and every twist in the clouds since even before June 1st you are simply burned out already and disapointed that Dorian is going poof. The truth is that if every season you never even looked at the tropics until August 1st chances are extremely good that you would miss very little. Conditions look bad in the Atlantic now because it is July. They always look bad in July. Otherwise July would be an active month historically for tropical storm activity. It is not.

[NDG]

This is no normal July at the MDR my friend.
Instability should had been going up by now and look where it is, even the last MJO which was fairly strong barely dented this chart.
Don't get me wrong, I still think things are going to pick up, but is not going to be at the MDR, it will be at the NW Atlantic & parts of the western Caribbena where storms will have the chance to get strong, where instability has been running higher than the MDR.

[NDG]

BTW, I don't think shear has been the big issue. Relatively speaking, perhaps.
But shear has not been the issue at the MDR and should not be the issue since we do not have an El Nino.

[gatorcane]

My thoughts are that Chantal and Dorian, although ultimately dissipated are harbingers of a potentially active Cape Verde season which typically starts around Aug 15th based on climatology. July is not an active month for Atlantic systems anyway, so it should be no surprise these storms dissipated.

We also need to watch the strong Bermuda High ridge because we have seen periods of time even going back to winter of last year where this ridge was very strong (in fact here in Florida we basically had no "winter" until March due to such a strong ridge from Dec-Feb.).

The potentially active Cape Verde season combined with the possibility of seeing this ridge return could make this a dangerous season. And let's not forget about "homebrew" where tropical systems form in the Caribbean, Gulf, and in the Western Atlantic.

Right now is the perfect time to make sure your hurricane supplies are ready while things are quiet.

[ninel conde]

This is no normal July at the MDR my friend.
Instability should had been going up by now and look where it is, even the last MJO which was fairly strong barely dented this chart.
Don't get me wrong, I still think things are going to pick up, but is not going to be at the MDR, it will be at the NW Atlantic & parts of the western Caribbena where storms will have the chance to get strong, where instability has been running higher than the MDR.

http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/project ... t_THDV.gif

that combined with the dry air make me assume the peak of the season will be rather slow. 2 straight storms now have fallen apart over deep tropical waters. something isnt favorable and im not buying its still july as the reason. this has been the case for 3 seasons now.

[Hybridstorm_November2001]

While I still feel this will be an active season. I no longer feel it will be as hyper active as I, and others including most experts, thought it would be back in Spring. I strongly think that the MDR, especially the eastern half, will be nearly as hostile to sustained development as it was in both 2011 & 2012. I'm looking for both more homebrew as well as systems that stay weak until they pass about 60 west. Which will prove very dangerous for North America, Central America & even perhaps the big Islands (especially from Hispaniola west)


The posts in this forum are NOT official forecast and should not be used as such. They are just the opinion of the poster and may or may not be backed by sound meteorological data. They are NOT endorsed by any professional institution or storm2k.org. For official information, please refer to the NHC and NWS products.

[hurricaneCW]

This is no normal July at the MDR my friend.
Instability should had been going up by now and look where it is, even the last MJO which was fairly strong barely dented this chart.
Don't get me wrong, I still think things are going to pick up, but is not going to be at the MDR, it will be at the NW Atlantic & parts of the western Caribbena where storms will have the chance to get strong, where instability has been running higher than the MDR.

http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/project ... t_THDV.gif

that combined with the dry air make me assume the peak of the season will be rather slow. 2 straight storms now have fallen apart over deep tropical waters. something isnt favorable and im not buying its still july as the reason. this has been the case for 3 seasons now.

The fact that we had two storms in July in the east Atlantic is a huge red flag for an active Cape Verde season from mid August through early October because most development that occurs in July is Gulf or Caribbean based.

Also Dorian formed during an unfavorable MJO period and in a couple weeks we enter Phase 2 or a much more favorable phase so I believe instability will definitely go way up. Shear is not a huge factor because of No El Nino, the SAL layer will gradually continue to diminish from its peak June and July activity, and you'll get several strong quality systems.

[CYCLONE MIKE]

I can agree with what hybrid,ndg, and ninel said but don't think the gulf is in anymore danger than it normally is compared to the early season forecasts. IMO for a storm to threaten the gulf it will have to be at the perfect latitude/longitude and date to make a run. With the persistent east coast trough and fronts dropping down to near the coast every week, will be awfully hard.

[ninel conde]

I can agree with what hybrid,ndg, and ninel said but don't think the gulf is in anymore danger than it normally is compared to the early season forecasts. IMO for a storm to threaten the gulf it will have to be at the perfect latitude/longitude and date to make a run. With the persistent east coast trough and fronts dropping down to near the coast every week, will be awfully hard.

you are making a good point about the trofs. this is beginning to look like last season where the deep tropics were dead. the last few days we have also had 2 invests form in the east coast trof, like last season as well.

[TheStormExpert]

Yesterday I was starting to get ancy too about how this season may be like the last 2. But y'all remember 2004 I'm pretty sure. June and July of 2004, NO storms. Then once we got into the beginning of August came our storm which became Cat.3 Hurricane Alex of the SE US. Followed by Bonnie, then Cat.4 Hurricane Charley days after that. So by just looking at that brief description of the first 3 storms of 2004 I kind of figured things really ramped up overall once it hit August 1st that year. This year we are ahead of 2004 by 4 Tropical Storms so our next storm that comes off Africa especially past August 1st could become our first hurricane of the season if things start ramping up like they normally do in August.

[galaxy401]

that combined with the dry air make me assume the peak of the season will be rather slow. 2 straight storms now have fallen apart over deep tropical waters. something isnt favorable and im not buying its still july as the reason. this has been the case for 3 seasons now.

Because it's July! Were you expecting 2008 Bertha? Besides, Cape Verde was dead quiet in 2005 and we know how that turned out...SAL dominates the first two months of the season and it's usually not an issue during the peak months.

[TheStormExpert]

Here's some graphics I found on Weather.com that should sum everything up. Very informative too!

Percentage of Named Storms Per Month:
(Percentage of named storms (tropical storms and hurricanes combined) that have formed in each month since 1950. As you can see, the large majority of tropical storms and hurricanes form from August through October.)


Peak of the Season: August - October:
(78% of named storms form during the peak of the hurricane season from August-October.)


Peak of the Season: August - October:
(84% of hurricanes form during the peak of the hurricane season from August through October.)


Peak of the Season: August - October:
(92% of major hurricanes form during the peak of the hurricane season from August through October.)

[Ntxw]

It's common sense that the season will pick up. Those graphs and climo says it will and it always does. But it doesn't change the fact that instability is low in the MDR and has been for a large chunk since the season started even for June and July, that is the trend the past 2+ years. Lack of instability has meant storms struggle in the deep tropics which based on such low trends that we have seen we can probably expect that when more storms form they too will likely struggle. This has always been a wildcard when many predicted a hyper active season hedging that the instability trend will reverse, it hasn't thus far. Everything else like shear, SAL etc has so far been decent for development.

[SapphireSea]

It's common sense that the season will pick up. Those graphs and climo says it will and it always does. But it doesn't change the fact that instability is low in the MDR and has been for a large chunk since the season started even for June and July, that is the trend the past 2+ years. Lack of instability has meant storms struggle in the deep tropics which based on such low trends that we have seen we can probably expect that when more storms form they too will likely struggle. This has always been a wildcard when many predicted a hyper active season hedging that the instability trend will reverse, it hasn't thus far. Everything else like shear, SAL etc has so far been decent for development.

Thought I would post on the real thread about this. I agree with most of what's been said. I also want to put emphasis on the fact that alot of people have been alarmed with ridging in the Atlantic and the threat of landfall. The ridging itself has been a key contributor to the hostile conditions, and I expect that when the season finally begins that we will see a normal ridge-weakness pattern that is always evident during the true heart of the season. (Not Aug 1-Oct 20) I believe it's more like August 10-Oct30. The ITCZ needs to lift a bit north still to aid in creating instability, this is normal. I believe 2003 and 2004 are good analogs. We began June and July on the board saying season cancel because of the SAL surge and oppressive Azores high, also concern with super ridging in the atlantic. The ridging weakened to near-normal levels in Mid-August and finally got things started.

Thus far though, I would say we are enroute to a busy season, although much still needs to be looked at if we approach August with little change in the pattern. A hostile environment can easily create a pocket of opportunity for something to really get going (Andrew). It only takes one. I believe everyone will agree that 1992 was not a dud season despite there being only 4 hurricanes.

On the flipside a troughy season like 1995 does not mean 'permenant E Coast shield', cannot underestimate the GOM and W Carrib storms early and late season. It also takes weak ridging at the wrong time to cause pain.