Warm weather brings uncertainty for hurricane season

Information & Education Manager for the Department of Disaster Management Chrystall Kanyuck-Abel has warned that continued warm weather being experienced at this time may not bode well for the Atlantic hurricane season this year.

“We should always be concerned, right? Because if we know that warm waters drive stronger storms, or drive the formation of storms, and we know that sea surface temperatures are very warm right now, then that signals us [to know] we might be looking at an active season,” Kanyuck-Abel said.

Because of El Nino, she explained that forecasters are not predicting above-average weather patterns but are instead suggesting that there will be near-normal or approximately normal weather.

“But there’s a lot of uncertainty this year because we’ve never seen such warm sea surface temperatures, and we don’t know exactly how strong that supposedly helpful influence of El Nino might be,” she added.

El Niño is a weather pattern characterised by warmer-than-usual ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, which can lead to significant climatic changes worldwide.

On this side of the equator, however, Kanyuck-Abel said El Niño disrupts the pattern of wind currents and helps to disrupt the formation of tropical cyclones.

Governor John Rankin recently warned that the Atlantic Basin can possibly anticipate as many as six hurricanes during the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season.

According to the Governor, forecasters have predicted as many as 13 named storms for the season, but just six of these are expected to develop into hurricanes. Of those six, two hurricanes are predicted to escalate into major hurricanes of category-three strength or higher.

But even though there has been one named storm thus far for the Atlantic hurricane season, the DDM’s Information Manager cautioned that persons should not read too much into this in relation to the list of named storms predicted for the season.