Tracking the tropics

Bernie Rayno looks at the history and significance of late-August tropical activity.

Transcript

00:00Well, when you take a look at the Atlantic hurricane season so far, I would say we're on

00:03par with the historical averages. Of course, we had our sixth name storm, Ferdinand. When did that

00:10form? On Saturday, it was August 23rd. We usually get the sixth name storm of the season on the 29th,

00:18but one hurricane so far, typically we see that second hurricane tomorrow on the 26th. That's

00:23not going to happen, so we're going to be a little behind on that. Second major hurricane,

00:28not until September 19th. We've already had our first major hurricane. Of course, that was Aaron.

00:34We are in the heart of the hurricane season. Yeah, a lot of times you hear it's September,

00:38but I'll tell you what, late August, look at the steep incline in historical numbers of storms

00:45and hurricanes, a very sharp incline that, of course, peaks around September 10th. But I always talk

00:51about from mid-August through September, you have to look out. And late August around Labor Day,

00:57there's almost always a named tropical system in the Atlantic, and it's usually a hurricane. Now,

01:03as we go through the rest of this month, we start looking more and more out into the tropics for

01:08tropical waves coming off Africa. We don't see anything in this area as we close the month.

01:13But as we close the month, we're going to watch this. Oftentimes, sometimes you can get frontal

01:18boundaries to come south along the southeast coast. And that's typically in early August,

01:22but we're seeing it in late August. So we're looking for homegrown development there.

01:27As we go through September, though, here's the real key. Water temperatures are reaching their peak.

01:33And more importantly, Saharan dust, which is usually widespread in the tropical Atlantic during the

01:39months of June, July and in the early August, becomes reduced. So when you look at the origins and

01:45where you see tropical systems develop in the Atlantic during the month of August, September,

01:50the entire basin is open for business.