Since it has been busy in the tropics lately, here is some hurricane information.

First, there is a hurricane season. It runs from June 1st to November 30th of each year…why then? These are the months that the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean are at least 80 degrees. This is a critical temperature since hurricanes need water to be at least 80 degrees to develop and survive. June and July are quiet months and most of the activity begins in the Gulf of Mexico or Caribbean with the warmer waters, but the storms are generally weak. It takes awhile for the Atlantic and the hurricane season to get going...its like waiting for an oven to heat up.

Atlantic hurricanes become more frequent in August and September. In fact, September 8th is the peak of hurricane season where there is a 95% probability of having at least one hurricane in the Atlantic . This season we had one Hurricane, Hannah, and two tropical storms…Ike and Josephine. Josephine died after a few days in the middle Atlantic , while Ike traveled thousands of miles before finally making landfall yesterday. Hurricanes quickly dissipate once they make landfall since there fuel source, warm water, is shut off.

Hurricanes also need the perfect atmospheric conditions to develop and that is why not every storm develops into a category 5 storm.

Hurricanes hate wind shear. Wind shear is wind moving in different directions at different heights. If a hurricane is moving west and the upper level winds are moving east, this is wind shear and it rips a storm apart. Some seasons have a stronger wind shear than others and that is why we have varying numbers of storms each year. The water always hits at least 80, but the atmosphere is not always perfect for storms.

2005, the year of Katrina and a record number of storms had a perfect atmosphere, and something we may never see again in our lifetime. It is not global warming, but a pattern in the atmosphere. Scientists who said every hurricane season would be like 2005 from now on because of Global Warming have been wrong. The past 3 seasons have been quiet, but each has had a few storms make landfall.