00:00Joining us right now, AccuWeather lead hurricane expert Alex DaSilva.
00:04Alex, before we talk about where we're going, let's talk about what the season has been like so far.
00:12Yeah, so far we've seen two named storms in both of them where you would expect to see them early
00:16on in the hurricane season.
00:18Really close to the United States, both forming in the Gulf.
00:21Of course, that would be Artha and Bertha.
00:25Cristobal will be the next name on the list in the tropical Atlantic.
00:28Now, where are we relative to where we should be in terms of numbers?
00:31Well, the average third named storm is August 3rd, so we've slipped a little bit behind average there.
00:36But the first hurricane is not until August 11th on average, and the first major is not even until the
00:42month of September.
00:43So, you know, we're just getting going here in the hurricane season, and we have a long, long way to
00:48go.
00:49And when we take a look at August, Alex, we'll take a look at the graph here.
00:53You'll notice that there's a sharp incline in storms.
00:58And August overall is the second busiest month in the hurricane season.
01:05We average four storms and two hurricanes.
01:07September, four storms and three hurricanes.
01:10But certainly August usually gets busy late in the month.
01:14Yeah, especially once you go week two and beyond in August.
01:17That's when you really open up more of the Atlantic Basin.
01:20And that's when we really have to start watching those tropical waves.
01:23You can still get tropical waves in June and July to develop, but it's much more likely once you turn
01:28the calendar over into the month of August.
01:30And that's exactly what we think could happen here as we go throughout the rest of the month.
01:34Again, you can see that roller coaster ride up.
01:36We're heading right up the slope right now in the month of August, the peak being September 10th or so
01:41for the tropical Atlantic Basin.
01:43But like I said, we're looking way out in the Atlantic now.
01:47We have now highlighted an area near Africa.
01:51Now, before we get into that, Alex, just to talk about how busy August can be, this is an interesting
01:58statistic.
01:59Since 1961, there's only been three years, three years during that time frame where we haven't had a storm in
02:07August.
02:07Yeah, again, very, very rare for us not to see a storm in August.
02:11Again, you're kind of going up that roller coaster, up the chain lift right now to the top of the
02:15hill.
02:15And it's very rare that you don't see something in the month of August.
02:19So even though we're expecting lower numbers overall this year due to El Nino, I think we can still see
02:25a storm or two during the month of August here.
02:28And now, like I said, we're looking way out towards Africa now.
02:31Like I said, we're opening up the rest of the basin here for potential development.
02:35Now, it's the time of the year that we look way out near Africa to see those tropical waves and
02:41to see if they have a shot to develop.
02:42Yeah, we're tracking a wave, Alex.
02:44You and I were looking at the data.
02:46It looks like it comes off the west coast of Africa on Monday.
02:49Now, it's way out there.
02:50But you know what?
02:51We're just not going to tell people, hey, there's a low chance of development.
02:55We want to give people an idea of where this is going and what's the chance of any U.S.
03:01impact.
03:01Yeah, well, in the short term, it's going to be dealing with a lot of dry air and wind shear.
03:05So it's going to have to come across pretty far south, I think, to avoid a lot of that Saharan
03:10dust.
03:11If it can do that, it has a shot to develop.
03:14It's also got to battle through some wind shear.
03:15So it's a long road ahead for this.
03:17But if it can actually develop, it's likely to move north of the island sometime during the middle of the
03:24month.
03:24And then it could close in a little bit closer to the Bahamas.
03:27But, again, it's so far out.
03:29And it's got so many hurdles to get through before it could even get close to the United States.
03:34I mean, look at all of this dusty, dry air.
03:36Everywhere in yellow and orange represents dry air.
03:40And that's an enemy for tropical systems.
03:42That will really choke those storms out.
03:43You can see, though, a lot of wind shear.
03:46But you can see a bit of a pocket there, lower wind shear, denoted by that lighter purple color.
03:51So there is a little bit of a window.
03:53If it can stay far enough south to avoid some of those hostile conditions, maybe we could see some development.
03:59Again, this is very, very far away from the United States.
04:02Nothing to be worried about at the moment.
04:04Just something we're keeping an eye on.
04:06Meanwhile, the Pacific's been pretty busy, Alex.
04:09We've already had, take a look at the list here, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven storms.
04:15Yeah, exactly.
04:16It's been very active, which you would expect in an El Nino year.
04:20The next name on the list is Hernan, and we very well could get that here next week.
04:25We're tracking an area east of Hawaii that could develop between August 10th to 12th.
04:29And then we have to watch it.
04:31It could approach Hawaii probably around the 14th or 15th.
04:35So if we see development, we're going to have to watch Hawaii.
04:37Again, the time frame for that would be the 14th and 15th when we could potentially see impacts in Hawaii
04:42if this develops.
04:45AccuWeather lead hurricane expert Alex DaSilva.
04:47Thanks for breaking it down here on AccuWeather Early.
04:50Thanks, Alex.
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