AccuWeather hurricane experts warn of a 'super-charged hurricane season"

AccuWeather

AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter warns of the potential for an unusually active 2024 Atlantic hurricane season.

Transcript

00:00 We have a special report here, you know, we're always trying to give you here on the AccuWeather Network,

00:04 AccuWeather.com and the AccuWeather app, which is a free download.

00:08 We're always trying to give you advance notice of very important topics,

00:12 and we have a very important announcement that we are going to make,

00:16 and with that, I want to bring in our chief meteorologist, Jonathan Porterjohn,

00:21 and I know we're not, we're only in February,

00:24 but we do want to make this special announcement about the upcoming hurricane season.

00:29 Bernie, that's right, AccuWeather's long-range expert team here is really sounding the alarm bells

00:35 about what this upcoming hurricane season could become in terms of making it a supercharged season

00:42 with the risks for many storms with some of these factors coming together.

00:46 Yeah, let's talk about the factors. You know what, whenever we're talking about the hurricane season,

00:51 we always start with water temperatures here, John, and here we are off the east coast,

00:56 but that's not where we're necessarily concerned with.

00:59 We're concerned about what we call the MDR, the major development region of the Atlantic basin,

01:05 and these are all water temperatures, lots of yellows, lots of reds,

01:10 and let's talk about the MDR, why this is so significant.

01:14 Well, this is the part of the Atlantic Ocean that we look at because 80% of the storms that become

01:21 tropical storms or hurricanes originate in this main development region just off the coast of

01:26 Africa all the way westbound into the Caribbean, and take a look at these differences from historic

01:32 average. In the oranges and reds, zero to five degrees Fahrenheit above average, five to ten in

01:39 the dark red. This is a lot of red, and one of the main reasons we have very serious concerns,

01:45 the water is so warm already. Typically, the water is about as warm as it is in mid-July.

01:52 Here we are toward the end of February. That's a big concern.

01:56 And you know, John, when you look at the history, and we can go back with the history,

01:59 it's kind of unprecedented when you go all the way back. Now, this is a lot of information on

02:05 the graph, but I think you could really, it's a lot warmer than it should be and a lot warmer than

02:11 it was historically. Sure was, and take a look at it. When you look at the numbers here, each of

02:17 these little bar graphs, each of these bars is representative of a year. Everything that's in

02:23 orange are temperatures above the historic average water temperatures in that main development

02:29 region, and look at how much this year stands out here at the end. It's almost 65 percent higher in

02:38 terms of the average temperature than the next closest year, which you go back to 2002 to get

02:44 that. So that shows you just the magnitude of the warmth of that water in the Atlantic Ocean.

02:50 Due to a warming atmosphere, we've talked about how oceans hold much of that, can hold a lot of

02:55 that heat, and also the El Nino pattern that we've been in, those are conspiring to really cause

03:00 these temperatures to be as high as they are. You know, John, but it's not just water temperatures.

03:04 We often also, we talk about water temperatures and wind shear. Now, it's hard to talk about

03:09 wind shear this far in advance on a day-to-day basis, but we do have some things that we look

03:16 at. Last year, for an example, we had the El Nino, the warming of the equatorial waters in the eastern

03:23 Pacific, and because of that, the wind shear was a lot stronger across the Atlantic, and that's

03:29 actually, in a way, counteracted the warmer water. Yes, it does, and that's why we had that, we were

03:34 talking about that big balance last year. Sometimes those disruptive winds, just as soon as a tropical

03:40 storm gets going, it can tend to cause the thunderstorms that are part of the storm to

03:45 be dispersed a bit and not intensify, so that can put a cap on how many hurricanes you get.

03:50 It didn't last year because that water was so warm. But here's the problem. We feel pretty

03:55 confidently that we're going into the opposite phenomenon, not an El Nino, but a La Nina, explain.

04:03 That's right, so what we'll be looking for is cooler waters in the Pacific, off the coast of

04:08 South America. You might say, well, John, that's the Pacific you're talking about, the Atlantic.

04:12 Actually, the changes in the water and the weather, the jet stream configurations, all across the world,

04:19 and much of the world, as a result of this phenomena, and when this happens, when you go from a,

04:23 into a La Nina pattern, that's when you have less of those changing wind speeds, less of those

04:29 disruptive winds in the atmosphere, so you end up with the risk for more hurricane activity.

04:35 That's why we're concerned with the developing La Nina and that warm water.

04:40 All right, let's put it all in the forecast, John, and this is what your team came up with here,

04:44 and unfortunately, I must say, the news isn't good.

04:48 No, it's not good, and of course, a couple of the main threats and the risks here is, first of all,

04:53 the warm water and entering into a La Nina pattern, we expect an above average number of named storms,

05:00 could be well above average, depending upon the strength of that La Nina,

05:04 and there's also going to be, Bernie, with all that warm water, we've talked about this before,

05:09 an elevated risk of storms to rapidly intensify, quickly gain wind intensity, and that, of course,

05:15 can lead to stronger impacts at landfall, especially when that happens close to the coast.

05:20 There will also be the risk, an elevated risk for major hurricanes.

05:24 Those are Cat 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale, and one thing I want to highlight here

05:30 is there will be, we think, a greater risk for landfalls in Texas and Louisiana.

05:37 Texas and Louisiana have not been areas that have been targets of hurricanes in recent years.

05:43 We think that may change this year as well, so a lot to be watching and be concerned about.

05:48 A lot of this is going to depend on just how strong that La Nina comes on as we head into the

05:52 peak of the hurricane season. We'll be following that very closely.

05:56 We're coming up on the break really quickly, John. Also, the season could start early and end late,

06:01 right?

06:02 Sure could. Whenever you have warm water, you've got to watch, as you always say, Bernie,

06:06 watch those upper lows that develop closer to the United States coastline.

06:10 Early season storms a threat again this year.

06:12 All right. We're giving you advance notice on the upcoming hurricane season.

06:15 AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter. John, thanks for joining us.

06:19 All right. Stay with us. We'll continue to keep you updated on the heavy rain in California right after this.

06:25 [Music]

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