How many tropical waves come off Africa in a hurricane seaso

[KWT]

Well pretty straight-foward question which is the same as the title, would anyway be able to put a ball-park figure on it?

[JonathanBelles]

I would say between 80-120.

[brunota2003]

The waves move generally toward the west in the lower tropospheric tradewind flow across the Atlantic Ocean. They are first seen usually in April or May and continue until October or November. The waves have a period of about 3 or 4 days and a wavelength of 2000 to 2500 km [1200 to 1500 mi], typically (Burpee 1974). One should keep in mind that the "waves" can be more correctly thought of as the convectively active troughs along an extended wave train. On average, about 60 waves are generated over North Africa each year, but it appears that the number that is formed has no relationship to how much tropical cyclone activity there is over the Atlantic each year.

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/A4.html

[KWT]

Ok thats cool thanks for the answer!

[P.K.]

60 seems about right given the past few years.

2006: 57 waves

2007: 58 waves

2008: 7 waves so far

There are threads with data from previous seasons but unfortunately they are offline at the moment. Note the above threads may miss some short lived waves depending on when they were updated.

[KWT]

Just seen this thanks for that P.K, its interesting to have a rough idea, I had a feeling it was in the 50-70 range so thats not far out really.