Getting ready for the 2024 hurricane season

 

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season gets underway on June 1. If recent seasons are any indication, it will be another active one. There are some important trends to look for as hurricane season gets closer.

Hurricane Lee was the strongest hurricane of the 2023 Atlantic season, reaching its peak intensity on September 8 as a Category 5 storm over the open Atlantic with sustained winds of 165 mph. Fortunately, it didn’t impact any land masses at that potentially catastrophic intensity. Lee was the eighth Atlantic Category 5 hurricane just since 2016. Also, last season became the ninth season over the last decade with at least one storm prior to June 1.

A system gets a name when it reaches tropical storm intensity with sustained winds around the center of circulation of at least 39 mph. A tropical storm becomes a hurricane when sustained winds reach 74 mph. A hurricane becomes “major” when sustained winds reach 111 mph or greater, making it a Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

Hurricane researchers at Colorado State University (CSU) recently issued their April forecast for the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season. Once again, they're calling for an unusually active season with 23 named tropical storms, of which 11 become hurricanes and 5 of those become "major" hurricanes. 

The key factors cited in their forecast are: (1) The presence of unusually warm sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic (warm ocean water is the fuel for tropical storms and hurricanes); and (2) The expectation La Nina conditions will develop over the summer.  The presence of La Nina (the opposite of El Nino) helps create more favorable environmental conditions for hurricane development and intensification in the Atlantic. This is because La Nina is associated with a reduced amount of wind shear (i.e., winds of different speeds in different directions), which allows for tropical systems to develop as well as warmer sea surface temperatures.

An “average” Atlantic hurricane season has 14 tropical storms, of which 7 intensify into hurricanes with 3 becoming “major” hurricanes. NOAA’s average is based on the 30-year period from 1991-2020.