No tropical storms to form in the mid-Atlantic until at least mid-August, forecasters say

AccuWeather

AccuWeather meteorologists explain why it's very unlikely that any tropical storms will form before Aug. 15, but why late in the month, storm development could skyrocket.

Transcript

00:00 We continue to track the tropics where a string of waves are currently being

00:04 watched, but Bernie Reynos still says we probably shouldn't expect much from any

00:08 of them. Yeah it's the same old story in the tropics. We have a number of tropical

00:14 waves, but there's not going to be any development this week, probably next as

00:18 well. Alright let me show you the tropical waves, two in the Caribbean and

00:22 also two in the tropical Atlantic. But typically this time of the year the

00:26 Atlantic Basin and what we call the MDR, the main development region, is usually

00:32 covered in dry air. Take a look at the water vapor loop here. Look at all the

00:36 dry air. We've seen this all week covering the tropical Atlantic. We have

00:40 an upper level low here that's producing wind shear which also weakens tropical

00:45 systems. You also have dry air in the Caribbean and dry air in the Gulf of

00:49 Mexico. So that's why despite the fact we have numerous waves, there's not been any

00:53 development. Too much dry air and too much wind shear throughout the

00:57 development region. And guess what? As we get into next week, the big story is

01:01 going to be this big dip in the jet stream or trough coming off the eastern

01:04 seaboard. You know what that's going to do? That's going to increase the wind

01:07 shear throughout the Caribbean and the tropical Atlantic and there's still

01:12 going to be some dry air. So even though we're looking at tropical waves coming,

01:15 the combination of the dry air and wind shear I think shuts down production. Now

01:19 maybe something tries to develop but it's not heading toward the United

01:23 States. So we're going to keep it quiet at least through August 15th if not

01:27 August 20th. But beware, we are slowly but surely getting into the heart of the

01:32 hurricane season here. And by the time we get into late August, once we get rid of

01:37 that wind shear and once that dry air lessens and the fact that the water

01:42 temperatures are running well above normal. Look at all of this warmer water.

01:46 These are the temperature anomalies here with showing that temperatures are

01:51 running above normal. We can flip the switch real fast here. So again we're

01:56 getting close to the heart of the hurricane season which is late August

01:59 through September. With peak hurricane season approaching, AccuWeather's experts

02:06 are updating their hurricane season forecasts. We're now expecting 13 to 17

02:12 named storms. Four to eight are expected to be hurricanes and one to three of the

02:17 major are expected to be major hurricanes. AccuWeather hurricane experts

02:21 add to that two to four direct impacts are expected for the United States. Water

02:27 temperatures are averaging anywhere from a half a degree to a degree Celsius

02:32 higher than normal. Not in just pockets but almost everywhere across the Atlantic

02:37 Basin. It lowers the surface pressures across the basin making it more easy for

02:42 storms to form and then deep warm water also causes storms to quickly intensify.

02:48 In fact in many cases rapidly intensify. But typically an El Nino pattern tends

02:55 to promote more of these winds that are unfavorable in the tropics. There are

03:00 winds that change wind speed and direction with height as you go higher

03:03 in the atmosphere and that disrupts the circulation of tropical storms when

03:08 they're trying to develop. So the battle between those two conflicting factors

03:12 is why we're forecasting a near to just above normal season and it's also

03:17 importantly why we think that there can be a period of very active time in the

03:23 in terms of tropical storms and hurricanes right around the peak of the

03:26 season that's in late August and early September.

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