At one point Hurricane Rick was one of the strongest hurricanes ever in the Eastern Pacific. Chances are that we won’t see another hurricane as strong as Rick this year. While the season isn’t over yet, it only has around another month and a half left. Most of the activity in the season occurs in August and September with the least activity in November. The reason behind this is water temperatures. Tropical systems thrive off warm waters, and without them they wouldn’t develop.

The Eastern Pacific tropical season started in mid-May and since then there have been 17 named storms. Fortunately most of the storms haven’t affected land. Hurricane Jimena has been the exception to this. Jimena reached category four strength before weakening to a category 2 as it made landfall over the Baja California Peninsula.

Up to this point the Eastern Pacific tropical season has been fairly seasonable. There have been 7 hurricanes so far. Up to this point in the season there are typically 9 hurricanes. The image below has more statistics regarding what has been a seasonable year.

Meanwhile, the Atlantic tropical season hasn’t been quite as seasonable. It took what seemed like forever to get the first storm of the season. Tropical storm Ana first developed in mid August. Ana was the first storm in what turned out to be an active week. Around the same time tropical storm Claudette developed and Hurricane Bill formed. Claudette caused problems for the southeastern United States and Bill eventually strengthened to a category 4 hurricane. However, Bill caused only minor problems for the eastern seaboard before eventually making landfall in Newfoundland as a category 1 hurricane. Since Bill conditions have been very quiet.

There have been only 2 hurricanes in the Atlantic this year which is well below average. Note the image below for more statistics.

So why has it been such a quiet year? Many climate experts will blame El Niño conditions for the calm Atlantic tropical season. El Niño often produces wind shear over the Atlantic. Wind shear is detrimental to the formation and existence of tropical systems.

Until Next Time,
Meteorologist Andrew Thut