An Eerily Quiet Hurricane Season

This Hurricane Season has been a strangely quiet one with only 6 named storms and no full blown Hurricanes. Its the normally the peak season for Hurricanes forming over the Atlantic and ramming into West Coast USA. The forecast is still showing an active season with 13-19 storms predicted to form, 6-9 Hurricanes and 3-5 major Hurricanes when wind speed exceeds 178km/h. There have already been 6 named storms, which is already more than average, it is just none have reached Hurricane strength. There have been tropical cyclones which have been hitting the Pacific Rim but the Atlantic Basin has been quiet.

 

So why has there been no Hurricanes so far? Well there has been a lot of dust drawn up in to the atmosphere from the Sahara. This is very dry air and is "cap" which stops the storms spinning and intensifying. This has created very dry sinking air where as the storms survive off warm, rising moist air. The effect of the Saharan Dust is highly debated and is known as the Saharan Air Layer. Scientists are warning that the storm season is no way over and September is certainly going to be more accurate.

 

However, the dust is set to dissipate over the current weeks meaning that these storms can form and intensify over the warm water.

Stats via Huffington Post and BBC