Hurricane Season Burbles to Life

This hurricane season with some early bangs, including Beryl becoming the earliest forming category 4 and then 5 storm on record. Debby meandered up the east coast, dumping ungodly amounts of rain on the Carolinas, among other places. Ernesto stayed far out in the Atlantic, but still managed to make its presence felt.

And then, through much of August, when hurricane seasons often start churning out dangerous storms — quiet. The Atlantic basin, with its areas of finally-cooler water, was calm. But it couldn’t last: As the historical peak of hurricane season on September 10 approaches, the basin has sprung into action.

As of this writing, three separate systems populate the National Hurricane Center’s Atlantic map. One will dump some rain along the Gulf Coast but doesn’t seem primed to do much more, while two further out to sea are in prime locations to gain strength and take aim at the Caribbean and the U.S. One has a 40 percent chance of becoming a tropical cyclone within the next week, while the other may need longer to develop. Obviously there is still a ton of potential variability in their paths, but as summer draws to a close it is time to start eying the tropical skies once again.