Hold on to your hats.
Just got off the phone with long-time Philly TV Meteorologist Glenn “Hurricane” Schwartz. I’ll be interviewing him in a few weeks looking forward to the coming Hurricane season – he pointed me to a blog post he’s already written on this.
Turns out those Atlantic Surface Temperatures are more than just lines on a graph – they will have real-world effects.
January saw a record-high monthly global ocean surface temperature for the 10th consecutive month. El Niño conditions that emerged in June 2023 continued into January, but according to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center it is likely that El Niño will transition to ENSO-neutral by April–June 2024 (79% chance), with increasing odds of La Niña developing in June–August 2024 (55% chance).
Nearly everyone with even the slightest interest in weather knows what El Nino is. And they know 2023 featured a rather strong one. Many also know that El Nino tends to suppress hurricane season in the Atlantic. The thousands of miles of unusually warm water in the Tropical Pacific show the El Nino clearly.
And that isn’t the only part of the earth with much above “normal” water temperatures. It’s to the point of being so extreme that it’s almost off the chart. Literally. Of course, the climate crisis is directly related to these extreme ocean temperatures.
That is bad enough (you might like to swim in warmer waters, but there are a LOT of bad things that happen also. The impact on hurricane season is one of them).
Below is a nice, simple illustration of what happens.
But the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season was a very active one, right? And that was during the strong El Nino. That doesn’t seem logical. It seems the extra warm Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico waters were enough to contribute to the high number of named storms (20 – the 4th most active season on record). The important distinction is the relative lack of hurricanes (only 7).
The El Nino prevented many of these storms from intensifying like in recent years. It seems that rapid intensification was the rule rather than the exception in years before 2023. That extra wind shear was a major factor.
So, what happens in 2024? The first thing is to determine whether that strong El Nino will turn to neutral conditions, or completely reverse itself and turn into La Nina. Look at recent history. Many strong El Ninos rapidly weakened and even reversed. It’s like sloshing water in a bathtub. Push the water toward one end. The water rises, and then reverses as it moves the other way.
Here is the forecast for this summer:
Yikes. Record warm water temps over much of the area that tropical storms form. Plus a La Nina to lead to less wind shear-which in turn allows for rapid intensification. This is literally a “worst case scenario”.
Some unbelievable Atlantic hurricane season forecasts will come in the months ahead. We could easily go beyond the entire alphabet (like 2020, with 30 named storms, 14 of which became hurricanes, and 7 became major hurricanes). No surprise that 2020 featured a strong La Nina. This does NOT necessarily imply a lot of hurricane strikes in the U.S., but….
So, folks, it may be a good idea to not take that Caribbean cruise between June and November this year (wait until winter). And to not take that vacation to Florida in the fall (wait until winter). Trips to Bermuda? Forget it during hurricane season (wait until winter). There is no guarantee that your vacation will be interrupted (or worse), but like a casino, it’s about the odds. And the odds for the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season are NOT in our favor.
Glenn “Hurricane” Schwartz
Climate Crisis Communicator
UPDATE:
Jeff Berardelli of WFLA in Tampa posted this today, Feb. 21.
A gentle reminder that during hurricane season the map that you need to watch is the absolute SST, not the anomaly.
noted.
Will be discussing with vet Met in a couple weeks, we may know more.