As any regular reader of this newsletter knows, there’s always a point in the hurricane season – most often in August – when the Atlantic springs awake.
Dr. William Gray, one of the forefathers of tropical meteorology, would famously ring his bell every August 20th through the halls and research labs at Colorado State University to signal the start of the most active 8-week stretch of the hurricane season.
Over the years, I’ve come up with a way to measure the pulse or heartbeat of the hurricane season. Overall hurricane season activity is reported by way of the Accumulated Cyclone Energy or ACE and the acceleration that activity can show us when the hurricane season first ramps up.
While the first big burst of activity can happen as early as June or as late as November, during the satellite era (from 1966 onwards), the wakeup call most often happens around August 20th, exactly when Dr. Gray would ring his bell.
The Atlantic is threatening to wake up a touch early this year, with three systems we’ll be keeping an eye to in the week ahead.
Another offshore frontal low
Like Dexter that formed late Sunday, models continue to advertise a low-pressure system forming along a stalled cold front off the Carolinas later this week or weekend.
The good news is recent runs keep the system farther offshore, which would lessen or perhaps altogether eliminate any heavy rain threat from it in the Thursday to Sunday time frame. For now the impacts appear limited, as it loops offshore and stays disorganized before accelerating away from the coast Saturday into Sunday.
We’ll continue to follow its progress in the event it slips farther west than forecast but regardless the main hazard would be periods of heavy rain on Friday and Saturday for the coastal Carolinas.
Atlantic wave #1
The first wave we’re tracking this week is currently moving through the tropical Atlantic between Africa and the Caribbean. The good news here is models have come into better agreement about this one recurving north next week rather than continuing west.
Of course we’ll keep an eye on the trends but this one shouldn’t pose a problem for any land areas in the week ahead.
Atlantic wave #2
While not yet on the National Hurricane Center’s outlook map, we’ll need to keep tabs on a tropical wave expected to roll off Africa by later this week or early weekend.
Staunch high-pressure steering will keep the system on a westward trajectory next week toward the Caribbean or western Atlantic, where conditions appear conducive for development.
We’ll have plenty of time to monitor, but there’s a fairly robust early signal for this one nearing the Caribbean by later next week (August 13-15th).
Dexter to transition into an extratropical storm over the north Atlantic
Dexter is exiting the tropical Atlantic stage right and as it does so will strengthen as a powerful extratropical storm in the coming days over the open north Atlantic.
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