The Atlantic hurricane season officially ends in two months. But according to the latest hurricane report from the New York Times, hurricane experts warn that the 2024 season is not over yet, and could even last until December.
Hurricane season typically calms down in October and November. When graphed, a typical hurricane season resembles a tall mountain with peak activity in early September.
But seasonal storm experts like Phil Klotzbach at Colorado State University believe this year will have “three hurricane seasons”: “a violent start, a super-quiet peak, and a violent end.” When charted, the 2024 hurricane season will look like two peaks with a valley in between.
In early July, Hurricane Beryl, the earliest major hurricane in the history of the season, made landfall in the United States, causing major damage in Houston. Hurricane Debby then flooded Florida, Georgia, and the Carolina coast in early August. But after Ernesto, the Atlantic Ocean went quiet. No new hurricanes formed for weeks at what was supposed to be the peak of the season.
Then, almost overnight, in mid-September, the quiet hurricane season ended. Hurricane Francine formed and hit Louisiana. Several other storms followed in the mid-Atlantic, including Gordon, Kirk and Leslie. But the worst was last week’s Helene. Helene rapidly strengthened in the Gulf of Mexico, hitting the Florida coast as the strongest hurricane ever to hit the state’s Big Bend. The torrential rains Helene unleashed led to widespread devastation.
With Hurricane Leslie forming this week, the season officially became an average one in terms of storm count. However, of those named storms, 66% strengthened into hurricanes. So an average season can still have a higher than average number of storms.
There are several elements of the 2024 hurricane season that have surprised weather forecasters, according to the New York Times.
Typically, hurricanes are more likely to form in the Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of Mexico than in the eastern Atlantic in October. But Hurricanes Kirk and Leslie formed off the coast of Africa and moved across the Atlantic this week.
"The weather conditions that made the 2024 hurricane season stronger than normal: warm sea surface temperatures, the presence of La Nina, are still there," said hurricane forecaster Matthew Rosencrans of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
In a typical hurricane season, there can be three storms in October and one in November. Therefore, hurricane forecasters do not rule out the possibility of five to six new storms in the coming period.
The Atlantic hurricane season officially ends on November 30. However, seasonal hurricane forecaster Rosencrans warns that in La Nina years, with warm sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic, the season can last until December.
The longest hurricane season occurred in 2005 when Hurricane Epsilon formed in late November and lasted until the first week of December, then Tropical Storm Zeta formed later in the year and lasted until the first week of 2006.
