At a Glance
- After Hurricane Beryl, the Atlantic Basin has been quiet.
- That's due in part to surges of dust-laden air from Africa's Sahara Desert.
- A more favorable environment is forecast to arrive by early to mid-August.
- This matches the typical ramp-up in hurricanes beginning in August.
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The Atlantic hurricane season may perk up again as soon as early August, following weeks of quiet weather dominated by Saharan dust.
For now, the quiet will last a bit longer. The National Hurricane Center doesn't expect tropical development anywhere in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea or Atlantic Ocean for at least the next seven days.
That followed a busy stretch from mid-June through early July with three named storms, one of which was early-season record-shattering Hurricane Beryl.
One reason for the calmer tropics recently is a parade of dusty air surges across the Atlantic Basin from Africa's Sahara, known as Saharan Air Layers (SAL). These SALs typically squash development potential early in hurricane season.
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But changes are ahead: Computer models are forecasting this suppressive tropical environment will flip.
Specifically, the models suggest a Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) may turn the tropical Atlantic to an environment more supportive of tropical storms and hurricanes.
This MJO is basically a large area of enhanced clouds and rainfall that moves eastward near the equator from the Indian Ocean around the globe every 30 to 60 days.
It has branches of rising and sinking air. Where the large-scale air is rising, it's more supportive of thunderstorms that are the basic building blocks of tropical storms and hurricanes. This rising branch also diminishes wind shear which is also typically hostile to tropical development.
Computer models suggest this branch of rising air will arrive in much of the tropical Atlantic Basin sometime in early August. That may end the current dormant tropical Atlantic stretch since Beryl.
August typically ramps up. This longer-range forecast is consistent with how a typical hurricane season evolves.
Activity in the Atlantic Basin usually begins to increase rapidly beginning around mid-August, as ocean warmth increases toward its seasonal peak, hostile wind shear reaches its yearly low, and Saharan Air surges begin to diminish.
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Last August, a similar MJO's rising air branch triggered four named storms in just 39 hours from Aug. 19-21.
Incidentally, a bit of a late July lull has shown up in data since 1995, according to North Carolina State University Ph.D. candidate Cameron Masiello.
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It's still a potentially dangerous season ahead. Many of the same ingredients that have been giving meteorologists concern since spring are still in place.
Ocean warmth in a strip of the Atlantic Basin where many tropical storms and hurricanes form – from Africa to the western Caribbean Sea – is still at record levels for this time of year; it's more typical of late September or October. If all other factors are equal, deeper, warmer water can fuel stronger hurricanes.
Prepare now: About 92% of a hurricane season's activity – by a metric called the ACE index – happens from August through the end of the season, according to Colorado State University tropical scientist Phil Klotzbach.
In a typical season, 12 storms and seven hurricanes form in the Atlantic Basin after July 31. Again, this season is forecast to be far from "typical."
So take this opportunity while it's quiet to make sure your hurricane plan is ready. That includes finding out if you're in an evacuation zone, where you'll go if asked to evacuate, and how to operate a generator safely in case you lose power.
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Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. His lifelong love of meteorology began with a close encounter with a tornado as a child in Wisconsin. He completed a Bachelor's degree in physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, then a Master's degree working with dual-polarization radar and lightning data at Colorado State University. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on X (formerly Twitter), Threads, Facebook and Bluesky.
