By Clint Thompson
The tropics have been surprisingly quiet in the Atlantic so far, especially when compared to previous years. But specialty crop producers should be mindful that the average date for the first hurricane in the Atlantic is still a week away.
Pam Knox, University of Georgia (UGA) Extension agricultural climatologist, discussed the current state in the tropics on the UGA Climate and Agriculture Blog.
“Obviously, we’ve had three named storms already but the date for the first hurricane in the Atlantic is usually around Aug. 11. You might remember this but in 1992, the first storm was Andrew, which hit Miami, and that didn’t happen until late in August,” Knox said. “That was an El Niño summer, which means there were fewer storms than usual. This year we’re expecting average to a little above average for the number of storms.
“Every season is different. Last year and the year before that we had some early storms which made a difference. This year we’re just waiting to see what happens.”
No Correlation
Knox stresses that the level of activity early in the season does not have any correlation to what will happen later in the season.
“Some years you have a lot of stuff in the beginning and not much in the second half, and other years it’s the other way. Then we had last year when we had nothing and really, the peak hurricane season, we had Hurricane Debby the first week of August, and we didn’t have Helene until the end of September. There was almost nothing in between,” Knox said.
“We expect there to be a more normal season this year with storms starting to ramp up the second half of August. We’ll see a lot more activity in September and early part of October; that’s a pretty typical season. We’re starting to see some signs now that some of the waves that are coming off of Africa are getting a little bit more (power) to them. They could start to form.
“We’re starting to see a little bit more activity, especially in some of the longer-term models. You have to be careful with those, because anything more than a week out, you can’t really trust very much.”