Tropical Season offically now below normal.... by a hair

[Frank P]

http://www.weatherstreet.com/hurricane/ ... season.htm

statistically speaking per WeatherSreet its below normal at the moment... but only by a fraction... the are contributing the lack of storms due to lower SSTs... My opinion is that the Mr. Shear has been playing havoc with the waves thus far and has been more a contributor to an overall lack of development ..... more so than SSTs... not to say things can't change in a hurry....

regardless....

I hope no one gets hit by a hurricane this year.......... especially me..

[Regit]

I would say SSTs have had no effect in inhibiting development this year.

That being said, the fact that we are fractionally below normal is completely irrelevant.

You need only look at current conditions and trends

Hypothetically, let's say you have 85 degree seas with favorable upper level conditions and lots of moisture in February. The fact that February is historically a slow month is completely irrelevant when you have such good conditions.

[Frank P]

I would say SSTs have had no effect in inhibiting development this year.

That being said, the fact that we are fractionally below normal is completely irrelevant.

You need only look at current conditions and trends

Hypothetically, let's say you have 85 degree seas with favorable upper level conditions and lots of moisture in February. The fact that February is historically a slow month is completely irrelevant when you have such good conditions.

Well it is in the sense that prior to the season most experts and non experts were predicting a very active year, an above normal year...... if it turns out only to be "just normal" (whether or not it does remains to be seen) then most everyone would have been off in their predictions... from what we've gone thru from the past two seasons... just "normal" would be a nice break...

[canegrl04]

If we don't see a hurricane before the end of August,I would say this year is going to turn out abnormally low

[ConvergenceZone]

Like you said, it's below by a fraction, but.....not for long....

[28_Storms]

Maybe that 5% chance of a below normal season just came true?

[Audrey2Katrina]

Below normal is GOOD!

May it stay that way!

A2K

[Deputy Van Halen]

If we don't see a hurricane before the end of August,I would say this year is going to turn out abnormally low

I don't even know if I would say that. In 2001, the first hurricane (Erin) didn't form until Sept. 9, and that was an above-average season.

If I tallied these right, there were four other seasons in the last 50 years with no hurricanes before September: 1967, 1984, 1988, and 2002. (I'm probably repeating what others have said).

1967 is the only one of those seasons that was significantly below average. The others were near average or only slightly below.

It looks like the latest first-cane was Gustav in 2002, on Sept. 11. If there are still no hurricanes by 9/12/06, I'd say slow season for sure!

[AussieMark]

to expand a bit on what Deputy Van Halen said

the first Hurricane of 2001 was Erin on September 9

the 2001 season ended up with 9 hurricanes that year and 4 were major

[boca]

Even if the water temps were in the upper 80's basin wide which would never happen but hypothetically if we had the shear we have now nothing would form.