By Clint Thompson
Hurricane peak season has come and gone, but that does not mean future storms this fall are out of the question. In fact, specialty crop growers should be mindful that potential storms are now more likely to originate in the Gulf Mexico this time of year, which would not provide ample time for producers in Florida, Georgia and Alabama to be prepared.
Pam Knox, University of Georgia Extension agricultural climatologist, has more information on potential storm development over the next couple of months.
“The peak comes right around Sept. 10, so we’re (five) weeks after, but the season goes until the end of November. We’re a long way from the end. What we’ll see in the next few weeks is a shift from more of these storms that come across the Atlantic to more storms that develop a little closer to us in the Gulf of Mexico,” Knox said.
“If you look at the climatology of where storms occur later in the fall, they’re more like Gulf storms, like Michael. It was really more like a Gulf storm. Fortunately, we don’t see anything in the next couple of weeks developing that way, but you still have to keep watching because if you get a storm that develops, you don’t have a lot of time before it hits us.”