Hurricane season hasn't even officially started yet, but AccuWeather forecasters are already watching an area of concern for development in the Caribbean.
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00:00Welcome back to AccuWeather Ahead. Let's take a look at the tropical outlook here
00:04across the Atlantic and into the Caribbean. We're looking at nearly
00:08record-warm waters. In fact, it is actually a record warm mean water
00:13temperature for this whole chunk of the Atlantic right now. If we look at where
00:16we are on the calendar, this early in the season, this is the warmest we have been
00:19historically. Two and a half to four and a half degrees above average. And, you
00:24know, it's been fortunate that we have not seen any preseason storms this year
00:28despite the warmth. But, again, you may have a whole lot of sugar sitting on the
00:32counter and that doesn't mean you're gonna necessarily have a batch of
00:34cookies. The warm water is one of the big factors, one of the big ingredients, but
00:38there are also some competing factors like wind shear. We've had too much
00:41wind shear. We've had a lot of dry air out there that has also prevented us
00:44from seeing any early season storms or preseason storms. Now, we could still see
00:49some early season action. In fact, we likely will. And around the end of next
00:53week, we'll be watching for this general zone here around the western end of
00:58Hispaniola into Jamaica and into eastern parts of Cuba into the Turks and Caicos,
01:02eastern Bahamas. There could be some heavy rain and some some strong
01:06indications that there's gonna be some extra moisture here and heavy
01:09torrential downpours. And if that organizes enough, we might see an early
01:12season storm. Now we are looking at an above average season, and that's not a
01:16surprise here. Our long range team is forecasting a 10 to 15% of 30 named
01:22storms. That would tie the record from 2020 if we see 30 names for so 10 to 15%
01:27chance that we actually tie the record. But overall, we are expecting between
01:31four and seven major hurricanes. That's above average. We average about three
01:35major hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin, and we are looking at a greater
01:39likelihood of impacts near the Texas coast of Florida, Panhandle, South
01:42Florida and the Carolinas. And we'll be watching again. We're expecting 20 to
01:4725 named storms. Last year we had 19 and we're expecting 4 to 6 direct U. S.
01:52Impacts.