As summer settles in, tropical activity could increase

After a few tropical events early in June, all’s been quiet on the hurricane front.  But forecasters with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration are predicting above-average hurricane activity in 2022, for the seventh year in a row.

As the weather heats up in late July and early August, so does tropical activity in the Atlantic and the Gulf.

Predictions for the Gulf Coast in particular are concerning as the Gulf of Mexico is already warmer than average for this time of year. Hurricanes feed off warmer water, which is why so many historically devastating hurricanes in the Northern Hemisphere have formed at the end of August or after.

La Niña, a weather pattern that involves changes in sea surface temperatures, has played a part in the last two busy hurricane seasons. In a favorable turn, the same weather pattern is keeping NOAA’s predictions for tropical cyclone activity this year in the Central Pacific lower than normal.

NOAA’s calculation for the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, which goes from June 1 through Nov. 30, gives a 65% probability for more hurricanes than an average year. The agency’s predictions have about a 70% accuracy rate.

For this year’s Atlantic season, the NOAA is forecasting a likely range of between 14 to 21 named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher), of which 6 to 10 could become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher), including 3 to 6 major hurricanes (category 3,4 or 5, with winds of 111 mph or higher).

The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season,  was the third-most active Atlantic hurricane season on record, producing 21 named storms and becoming the second season in a row – and third overall – in which the designated 21-name list of storm names was exhausted. Consequently, the season also became the sixth consecutive year with above-average tropical cyclone activity in terms of the number of named storms.  The 2021 season was also  La Nina year for storms.  During La Nina patterns, wind shear from the west is not as strong as in other seasons which prevents the shearing of  the tops of forming hurricanes allowing them to develop more frequently.

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