The Atlantic hurricane season usually doesn’t come roaring out of the gate, and, as we discussed in yesterday’s newsletter, June is historically the least active month of the season for the basin.

The same can’t be said on the eastern Pacific side where the hurricane season officially started May 15^th – 15 days before the Atlantic hurricane season. The eastern Pacific typically begins churning out hurricanes by June, unlike in the Atlantic where hurricanes aren’t a common sight until August.

This year especially, the eastern Pacific is expected to have a lively hurricane season, with NOAA predicting well above average activity, primarily for the very same reasons they’re predicting lower overall tropical activity in the Atlantic. Not only are water temperatures much warmer than average in the region around the equator where we look for El Niño conditions, but they’re at record or near-record warmth for the time of year north of the equator in the eastern Pacific and near Mexico where storms prefer to form.

Sea surface temperatures relative to historical records back to 1982 for the eastern Pacific. Deep reds indicate near record or record warmth, with record warmest waters hatched. Credit: cyclonicwx.com.

So it’s no surprise we already have our first tropical depression and soon-to-be named storm of the eastern Pacific hurricane season, with two other areas to watch off the Pacific coasts of Mexico and Central America.

While soon-to-be Amanda is expected to stay over the open Pacific, the two disturbances closer to land could threaten the Pacific coastline as Boris and/or Cristina by the middle part of next week.

Low-pressure tracks from Google’s machine learning-based DeepMind hurricane model for the eastern Pacific. Tropical Depression One (soon-to-be Amanda) will stay over the open Pacific, but the two disturbances closer to Mexico and Central America may threaten the Pacific coastline as named storms by mid next week. Credit: Weathernerds.org.

Quiet first week for the Atlantic

The Atlantic will stay dormant through the first week of the hurricane season.

As we detailed in yesterday’s newsletter, we’ll keep an eye to the western Caribbean and southern Gulf starting late next week and into mid-June as the stormy side of the MJO makes its way into the basin. We’re seeing some signals in the long-range models (beyond 10 days) that the Central American Gyre may crank up come mid-month, but for now the signals remain weak and inconsistent.

So for the time being we’ll enjoy the quiet start to the Atlantic hurricane season.

Eastern Pacific hurricane season ramps up as the Atlantic stays dormant

No development expected on the Atlantic side through at least early next week

Quiet first week for the Atlantic

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Michael Lowry