AccuWeather's Jon Porter was live on the AccuWeather Network on Sept. 4 to discuss how quiet the last few weeks have been in the tropics.
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00:00And John, let's talk about where we are so far this year from a number standpoint right
00:08now, not all that impressive numbers, but we've already had three hurricanes and three
00:15hits along the United States, which is still somewhat impressive for this time of the year.
00:21That's a good point.
00:22It's actually been the tale of two seasons thus far.
00:24We started off very active with multiple long track, very damaging and impactful storms
00:33both in the Caribbean and of course, Beryl and Debbie here in the United States.
00:36But then part two has been this long period of time where we had very little activity
00:42in the entire tropical Atlantic.
00:45You know, John, let's take a look at this.
00:47You and I were talking.
00:48This is unprecedented, an unprecedented quiet time during a time frame that is usually
00:56very active in the Atlantic Basin.
00:58That's perhaps the most shocking part of it.
01:01This is the time period where we're usually ramping it up like a hockey stick in terms
01:04of frequently having many tropical storms and hurricanes that we're tracking.
01:09But look at this, this lull, the last time this happened between August 13th and September
01:153rd to not have a new named storm was all the way back to 1968.
01:21So that puts this type time period into context of how rare it is.
01:26Just to give you an idea, John, how late that was, I was born in 1967, by the way.
01:33But let's talk about why, why are we seeing this?
01:38Well, that's, of course, been the question that AccuWeather, Long Range and hurricane
01:41experts have been tracking very closely.
01:44First, it's been a little bit of a slower transition to La Nina.
01:48That's that cooler than historic average water in the equatorial Pacific that has an impact
01:53on the Atlantic hurricane season.
01:55We've talked about that a lot.
01:56That transition's been a little bit slower.
01:58The big thing is there's been all this dry, dusty air over the main part of the Atlantic
02:03Basin, which has put a lid on the development of those tropical storms and eventually hurricanes.
02:10And we've also had an unusual atmospheric weather set up across Africa that has resulted
02:17in this lower number of storms as well.
02:20John, the one thing I still think there's going to have to be a price to be paid, though,
02:25for all this warm water.
02:27Now, thankfully, it may not be the number of storms that we first feared.
02:30But do not let your guard down, because when you look at the updated forecast, John, it's
02:35the direct impacts that concerns me.
02:39That is correct.
02:40It concerns me as well, especially with all that warm water.
02:42And our forecast is actually for 16 to 20 named storms.
02:47We reduced that yesterday, as well as reducing the number of hurricanes and major hurricanes
02:53by a few because of the fact that we've had this long stretch of no activity, no organized
03:00activity in the tropical Atlantic.
03:01That's been great news in general while it's lasted.
03:05But our concern is it is not going to last.
03:07So don't let your guard down.
03:08An active second half of the season on the way.
03:11And again, we're taking that forecast.
03:12We took it down yesterday.
03:1316 to 20 named storms.
03:15Still a very active hurricane season.
03:18AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter, thanks for joining us, John.
03:21Good to be with you.