Hurricane season officially begins later this week, but as we’ve seen with Subtropical Storm Alberto, Mother Nature doesn’t care overly much about arbitrary dates. Nevertheless, it is the time of year to begin thinking about the tropics, and so we’re going to help you get ready with some questions and answers.
Why does hurricane season occur now?
The easy answer is “warmer water,” and it is true that sea surface temperatures above 80 degrees Fahrenheit are generally needed for tropical storms to form, and strengthen into hurricanes. However, seas in the tropics are generally warmest in October, when hurricane season often begins to wind down. There is another factor, wind shear, that is critical. When winds are rough, and blowing as cross directions at different altitudes, storms simply cannot form. Typically, tropical storms will thrive only when wind shear values near the center are below 20 knots. The following graphic, from FEMA’s Michael Lowry, shows why the hurricane season lasts from June through November, but typically peaks during early September.
Help! I’ve seen a really scary forecast on Facebook
Already this season we’ve seen some hyperbolic forecasts on Facebook. In March, a post forecasting doom and gloom for the 2018 Atlantic season went viral, and more recently a post showing a major hurricane hitting Texas in June got passed around. Such “social mediarology” plays on the fears of people, and therefore tends to get shared widely. If you’ll promise to not fall for these kinds of fear-mongering posts, we’ll make a pledge to you: If we believe there is a credible threat to Houston, we will report that immediately. And if we haven’t written about it, the post you’ve seen on Facebook is probably garbage.
