In most hurricane seasons, we watch for the storms that form in the Atlantic’s main development region, or MDR, the primary hurricane belt stretching from Africa through the Caribbean south of 20 degrees north latitude, where most of our strongest and longest-lived hurricanes form.
Over the past 60 years, about 66% of all tropical activity has been generated from storms born out of the MDR. In strong El Niño years, like this one, only about half of all tropical activity comes from storms originating in the MDR. The other half comes with their beginnings in the subtropics, the zone just north of the deep tropics that includes both Gulf waters and Atlantic waters directly east of Florida and the Bahamas.
That, of course, doesn’t mean we stop looking to the MDR for tropical seedlings with hurricane ambitions, but the subtropics tend to count a little more toward overall activity in big El Niño years like this one, so we pay closer attention to those areas farther north that we might otherwise overlook.
We can find lots of powerful and impactful hurricanes that had their birth in the subtropics over the years. They can happen in both very inactive hurricane seasons (see Alicia in 1983 or Joaquin in 2015) or during gang buster hurricane seasons (see Katrina in 2005 or Milton in 2024). The area that tends to churn out the stronger and longer-lived hurricanes of subtropical origins tends to be the western Atlantic waters just east of Florida and northeast of the Caribbean.
So don’t sleep on systems that fester in these waters this hurricane season, especially since it’s here that waters are well above average and at record or near-record warmth for the time of year (this includes the Gulf, which sits at record warmth for the time of year).
It’s also an area of the Atlantic that’s protected from the intense wind shear conveyor belt that helps to reduce the contribution to tropical activity from the Main Development Region during El Niño years.
Nothing brewing this week but watching the trends in the northern Gulf early next week
The Atlantic’s in store for another sleepy week. Last week we mentioned a stalled front over western Atlantic waters later this week along which we’d follow for outside development odds. Models remain unenthusiastic to say the least, and any low-pressure candidates should stay both non-tropical and weak east of the Carolinas this week.
Beyond that in the subtropics, we’ve seen a small tick up from forecast models in the possibility of tropical mischief over the northern Gulf next week. The European AI camp, in particular, has trended more bullish, but beware of overheated forecasts from the Euro AI (its deterministic or single-run model forecast late Sunday was advertising a hurricane in the northeastern Gulf for early next Tuesday) as that model has shown zero skill in intensity forecasting so far (see our AI model post from late last month where we discussed the reasons behind this).
For now environmental conditions early next week in the northern Gulf don’t appear especially ripe for development, with a decent amount of northerly wind shear settled over the area. Google’s DeepMind machine learning-based 1000-member ensemble as well as the traditional physics-based European ensemble system both indicate development odds at around 10-20% from next Sunday (July 19th) to next Wednesday (July 22nd). That seems like a reasonable starting place.
It’s nothing to worry about at this point, but it’s worth checking back on the trends later this week.
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