Why is the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season underperforming expectations?

[LarryWx]

@jconsor, Thanks for posting those papers. Now we have excellent backing for the idea of a negative partial correlation between sunspots and hurricane activity based on the idea of increased atmos. stability due to a warmer upper trop/lower strat resulting from increased sunspots (with no lag). This appears to show up more clearly when ASO sunspots are higher than JJN sunspots per Elsner et al. As I understand it (correct me if I’m wrong), current atmospheric stability is relatively high in much of the basin. So, the recent/current very high SSN May really be one of the most significant factors causing the quiet.

[ConvergenceZone]

I lowered my non-professional opinion to 3 storms for September, 2 for October and 1 for November. I'll see how close I get, but I like my odds .

[LarryWx]

Though not as high as most of August (avg of 215), sunspots are still quite high with an avg of 184 so far this month. Anything over 175 is very high. Avg is ~85.
The dailies will be worthwhile to monitor throughout the month to see whether a significant drop occurs:

2024 09 01 2024.668 180 16.2 26 33
2024 09 02 2024.671 197 19.4 24 31
2024 09 03 2024.673 180 22.4 19 22
2024 09 04 2024.676 179 29.7 19 23
2024 09 05 2024.679 180 13.7 13

[mpic]

Let me start out by saying that I know nothing and just throwing this out there. I don't care if it's called climate change or called nothing at, but the last few years have really thrown us some curveballs in SE Texas...an unprecedented freeze followed by 2 years of drought and now an early "storm" season. Is something underfoot that is changing and hasn't been picked up on yet? A factor in development that is new? Does that make sense?

[caneman]

Let me start out by saying that I know nothing and just throwing this out there. I don't care if it's called climate change or called nothing at, but the last few years have really thrown us some curveballs in SE Texas...an unprecedented freeze followed by 2 years of drought and now an early "storm" season. Is something underfoot that is changing and hasn't been picked up on yet? A factor in development that is new? Does that make sense?

I say this every time. People want to always use past hurricane climatology or analogs or trends to predict what will happen . Every year is a unique and different season adding another cog to wheel but each cog is different. While past hurricane climatology and or analogs can give you some guidance, it isn't the be all end all as each season in it's own uniqueness will alter hurricane climatology averages even to just a small degree going forward. It's another season to add to the averages of similar type seasons.

[mpic]

Let me start out by saying that I know nothing and just throwing this out there. I don't care if it's called climate change or called nothing at, but the last few years have really thrown us some curveballs in SE Texas...an unprecedented freeze followed by 2 years of drought and now an early "storm" season. Is something underfoot that is changing and hasn't been picked up on yet? A factor in development that is new? Does that make sense?

I say this every time. People want to always use past hurricane climatology or trends to predict what will happen . Every year is a unique and different season adding another cog to wheel but each cog is different. While past hurricane climatology can give you some guidance, it isn't the be all end all as each season in it's own uniqueness will alter hurricane climatology averages even to just a small degree going forward. It's another season to add to the averages of similar type seasons.

And I'm glad this one is as diminished as it is. I finally ordered a generator for the first time ever and it was the wrong one and returned it. Now I'm sweating it out hoping I can get another one delivered before we get hit again.

[caneman]

Let me start out by saying that I know nothing and just throwing this out there. I don't care if it's called climate change or called nothing at, but the last few years have really thrown us some curveballs in SE Texas...an unprecedented freeze followed by 2 years of drought and now an early "storm" season. Is something underfoot that is changing and hasn't been picked up on yet? A factor in development that is new? Does that make sense?

I say this every time. People want to always use past hurricane climatology or trends to predict what will happen . Every year is a unique and different season adding another cog to wheel but each cog is different. While past hurricane climatology can give you some guidance, it isn't the be all end all as each season in it's own uniqueness will alter hurricane climatology averages even to just a small degree going forward. It's another season to add to the averages of similar type seasons.

I get it, I finally got one and the only use it got was from a family member south of me in Florida. Part of me wants to really use my brand new machine though. Lol

[Hammy]

Given the shear in the western part of the basin I'd be surprised if anything develops at this point before mid-month. All the MDR lemons are fading, the Caribbean system is going to be buried in Central America soon, and the two invests got tagged just in time to be blasted with shear and decouple--only the overzealous NAM really shows any development of either--the HRRR and everything else shows frontal lows

[Emmett_Brown]

 https://x.com/BenNollWeather/status/1831788795647422939

[Ubuntwo]

 https://x.com/BenNollWeather/status/1831788795647422939

Interestingly the ECMWF seasonal forecast did still predict well above average activity, so it must have not been expected as an overpowering factor.

[Emmett_Brown]

Interestingly the ECMWF seasonal forecast did still predict well above average activity, so it must have not been expected as an overpowering factor.

Yeah; He says this is June-August, which are often pretty stable anyway. I wonder what the models showed for stability in September and October

[chaser1]

Let me start out by saying that I know nothing and just throwing this out there. I don't care if it's called climate change or called nothing at, but the last few years have really thrown us some curveballs in SE Texas...an unprecedented freeze followed by 2 years of drought and now an early "storm" season. Is something underfoot that is changing and hasn't been picked up on yet? A factor in development that is new? Does that make sense?

I say this every time. People want to always use past hurricane climatology or trends to predict what will happen . Every year is a unique and different season adding another cog to wheel but each cog is different. While past hurricane climatology can give you some guidance, it isn't the be all end all as each season in it's own uniqueness will alter hurricane climatology averages even to just a small degree going forward. It's another season to add to the averages of similar type seasons.

And I'm glad this one is as diminished as it is. I finally ordered a generator for the first time ever and it was the wrong one and returned it. Now I'm sweating it out hoping I can get another one delivered before we get hit again.

Just goes to show; Not all is lost from this season. At least generator sales have been "hyperactive"

[WeatherBoy2000]

Let me start out by saying that I know nothing and just throwing this out there. I don't care if it's called climate change or called nothing at, but the last few years have really thrown us some curveballs in SE Texas...an unprecedented freeze followed by 2 years of drought and now an early "storm" season. Is something underfoot that is changing and hasn't been picked up on yet? A factor in development that is new? Does that make sense?

I say this every time. People want to always use past hurricane climatology or trends to predict what will happen . Every year is a unique and different season adding another cog to wheel but each cog is different. While past hurricane climatology can give you some guidance, it isn't the be all end all as each season in it's own uniqueness will alter hurricane climatology averages even to just a small degree going forward. It's another season to add to the averages of similar type seasons.

Many people thought Beryl was confirmation that a truly hyperactive season was on the way due to 2005/1933 being the only comparable analogs in that set up. Now it is September 6th, no storm has formed since the 12th of August and it's unlikely a storm will form before the 10th. 2024 has shown that current activity is not necessarily a good predictor of future activity, this could prove itself true again due to agencies like CSU still predicting an active back end despite what's going on now.

[al78]

Many people thought Beryl was confirmation that a truly hyperactive season was on the way due to 2005/1933 being the only comparable analogs in that set up. Now it is September 6th, no storm has formed since the 12th of August and it's unlikely a storm will form before the 10th. 2024 has shown that current activity is not necessarily a good predictor of future activity, this could prove itself true again due to agencies like CSU still predicting an active back end despite what's going on now.

It was a little less simplistic than that. If you look at all years when a named storm formed in the MDR in June or July, the majority of those years saw above above-average activity and all were at least around-average.

https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd-faq/#earl ... tivity-tcs

"As shown in (Goldenberg 2000), if one looks only at the June-July Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes occurring south of 22°N and east of 77°W (the eastern portion of the MDR for Atlantic hurricanes), there is a strong association with activity for the remainder of the year. According to the data from 1944-1999, total overall Atlantic activity for years that had a tropical storm or hurricane form in this region during JJ have been at least average and often above average. So it could be said that a JJ storm in this region is pretty much a “sufficient” (though not “necessary”) condition for a year to produce at least average activity. (I.e., Not all years with average to above-average total overall activity have had a JJ storm in that region, but almost all years with that type of JJ storm produce average to above-average activity.) The formation of a storm in this region during June-July is taken into account when the August updates for the Bill Gray and NOAA seasonal forecasts are issued."

Again, seasonal forecasts come down to probabilities in the end based on historical records. If a number of factors historically and physically known to influence hurricane activity are aligned to favour enhanced activity, and demonstrable skill can be shown using these factors to construct hindcasts, it would be illogical not to issue a forecast for high activity. Within the forecast, there should be space devoted for qualitative discussion on uncertainties and other factors which may come into play. One freak year does not mean the laws of physics have broken down and I don't think it is helpful to make decisions based on the extremes of a distribution instead of the bulk of it. If we have a multi-vehicle pile-up on the interstate killing 20 people, we don't immediately start questioning whether it is a good idea to allow people to operate private motor vehicles.

[REDHurricane]

Many people thought Beryl was confirmation that a truly hyperactive season was on the way due to 2005/1933 being the only comparable analogs in that set up. Now it is September 6th, no storm has formed since the 12th of August and it's unlikely a storm will form before the 10th. 2024 has shown that current activity is not necessarily a good predictor of future activity, this could prove itself true again due to agencies like CSU still predicting an active back end despite what's going on now.

It was a little less simplistic than that. If you look at all years when a named storm formed in the MDR in June or July, the majority of those years saw above above-average activity and all were at least around-average.

https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd-faq/#earl ... tivity-tcs

"As shown in (Goldenberg 2000), if one looks only at the June-July Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes occurring south of 22°N and east of 77°W (the eastern portion of the MDR for Atlantic hurricanes), there is a strong association with activity for the remainder of the year. According to the data from 1944-1999, total overall Atlantic activity for years that had a tropical storm or hurricane form in this region during JJ have been at least average and often above average. So it could be said that a JJ storm in this region is pretty much a “sufficient” (though not “necessary”) condition for a year to produce at least average activity. (I.e., Not all years with average to above-average total overall activity have had a JJ storm in that region, but almost all years with that type of JJ storm produce average to above-average activity.) The formation of a storm in this region during June-July is taken into account when the August updates for the Bill Gray and NOAA seasonal forecasts are issued."

Again, seasonal forecasts come down to probabilities in the end based on historical records. If a number of factors historically and physically known to influence hurricane activity are aligned to favour enhanced activity, and demonstrable skill can be shown using these factors to construct hindcasts, it would be illogical not to issue a forecast for high activity. Within the forecast, there should be space devoted for qualitative discussion on uncertainties and other factors which may come into play. One freak year does not mean the laws of physics have broken down and I don't think it is helpful to make decisions based on the extremes of a distribution instead of the bulk of it.

Exactly -- what's happening so far this year is baffling for sure, but one year is an extremely small sample size (duh) and anyone who's implying that people shouldn't pay attention to preseason forecasts from NOAA, CSU, NCSU, UKMET, etc. anymore because of a potential single-season "bust" doesn't understand how probabilities work. The only caveat to using historical indicators to forecast future activity, though, is the fact that the climate is rapidly changing, which does make it a valid question to ask whether or not we can continue depending on the "rules" under which hurricane seasons usually operate... but regardless of that, sh*t happens; if someone told you to randomly pick a ball from a bag that you know contains 9 red balls and 1 blue ball and you pick the blue ball on your first try, that wouldn't even be surprising. Well, because monthly/yearly TC activity is so complex and fickle, the best we can ask for is a similar level of confidence in predictions for any particular season -- so in that sense, the forecasting agencies have essentially presented us the same scenario, where, given the favorable wide-scale synoptic patterns in place this year, they can somewhat confidently tell us that the 9 red balls represent the odds of having a very active to hyperactive season and the 1 blue ball represents the odds of having a slightly above average or lower season. Just because we might have picked the blue ball this season (strong emphasis on the "might have" as there is plenty of time left for things to change) doesn't suddenly make it reasonable to go back and claim that there were actually 6 blue balls and only 4 red balls in the bag the entire time. You'd have to pick the blue ball at least 3-4 times in a row before starting to question whether something fishy is up and investigate to make sure there are still 10 balls left in the bag and only 1 of them is blue.

If we have a multi-vehicle pile-up on the interstate killing 20 people, we don't immediately start questioning whether it is a good idea to allow people to operate private motor vehicles

Speak for yourself, I question whether it's a good idea basically every time I am inside and/or around motor vehicles

[toad strangler]

If we make it another four days with no development it would be the first time since the 1929 season to have no active tropical depressions, storms, or hurricanes during the period of 8/21 through 9/10 in the Atlantic Basin.

[tolakram]

If we make it another four days with no development it would be the first time since the 1929 season to have no active tropical depressions, storms, or hurricanes during the period of 8/21 through 9/10 in the Atlantic Basin.

It might be rarer than that due to lack of detection in the earlier years.

[WeatherBoy2000]

Many people thought Beryl was confirmation that a truly hyperactive season was on the way due to 2005/1933 being the only comparable analogs in that set up. Now it is September 6th, no storm has formed since the 12th of August and it's unlikely a storm will form before the 10th. 2024 has shown that current activity is not necessarily a good predictor of future activity, this could prove itself true again due to agencies like CSU still predicting an active back end despite what's going on now.

It was a little less simplistic than that. If you look at all years when a named storm formed in the MDR in June or July, the majority of those years saw above above-average activity and all were at least around-average.

https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd-faq/#earl ... tivity-tcs

"As shown in (Goldenberg 2000), if one looks only at the June-July Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes occurring south of 22°N and east of 77°W (the eastern portion of the MDR for Atlantic hurricanes), there is a strong association with activity for the remainder of the year. According to the data from 1944-1999, total overall Atlantic activity for years that had a tropical storm or hurricane form in this region during JJ have been at least average and often above average. So it could be said that a JJ storm in this region is pretty much a “sufficient” (though not “necessary”) condition for a year to produce at least average activity. (I.e., Not all years with average to above-average total overall activity have had a JJ storm in that region, but almost all years with that type of JJ storm produce average to above-average activity.) The formation of a storm in this region during June-July is taken into account when the August updates for the Bill Gray and NOAA seasonal forecasts are issued."

Again, seasonal forecasts come down to probabilities in the end based on historical records. If a number of factors historically and physically known to influence hurricane activity are aligned to favour enhanced activity, and demonstrable skill can be shown using these factors to construct hindcasts, it would be illogical not to issue a forecast for high activity. Within the forecast, there should be space devoted for qualitative discussion on uncertainties and other factors which may come into play. One freak year does not mean the laws of physics have broken down and I don't think it is helpful to make decisions based on the extremes of a distribution instead of the bulk of it. If we have a multi-vehicle pile-up on the interstate killing 20 people, we don't immediately start questioning whether it is a good idea to allow people to operate private motor vehicles.

My comment wasn't meant to say that people's assumptions were bad. At the time only 1933 and 2005 had intense/long lived hurricanes in the same location as Beryl was, a lot of people saw that as confirmation that the forecasts were well on their way to verifying. 2024 is just a good example of how current conditions (back in late June/July) aren't necessarily a solid predictor of future conditions. It's unfortunate that many people will not understand why CSU/others made the forecasts that they did for this season. Everything seemed to point towards a historic season, no one had much of a reason to predict otherwise back in the spring/early summer.

[Hypercane_Kyle]

If we make it another four days with no development it would be the first time since the 1929 season to have no active tropical depressions, storms, or hurricanes during the period of 8/21 through 9/10 in the Atlantic Basin.

It might be rarer than that due to lack of detection in the earlier years.

Agreed. This is probably a 1-in-150 year event. 1914 was likely a similar year.

[cheezyWXguy]

Many people thought Beryl was confirmation that a truly hyperactive season was on the way due to 2005/1933 being the only comparable analogs in that set up. Now it is September 6th, no storm has formed since the 12th of August and it's unlikely a storm will form before the 10th. 2024 has shown that current activity is not necessarily a good predictor of future activity, this could prove itself true again due to agencies like CSU still predicting an active back end despite what's going on now.

It was a little less simplistic than that. If you look at all years when a named storm formed in the MDR in June or July, the majority of those years saw above above-average activity and all were at least around-average.

https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd-faq/#earl ... tivity-tcs

"As shown in (Goldenberg 2000), if one looks only at the June-July Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes occurring south of 22°N and east of 77°W (the eastern portion of the MDR for Atlantic hurricanes), there is a strong association with activity for the remainder of the year. According to the data from 1944-1999, total overall Atlantic activity for years that had a tropical storm or hurricane form in this region during JJ have been at least average and often above average. So it could be said that a JJ storm in this region is pretty much a “sufficient” (though not “necessary”) condition for a year to produce at least average activity. (I.e., Not all years with average to above-average total overall activity have had a JJ storm in that region, but almost all years with that type of JJ storm produce average to above-average activity.) The formation of a storm in this region during June-July is taken into account when the August updates for the Bill Gray and NOAA seasonal forecasts are issued."

Again, seasonal forecasts come down to probabilities in the end based on historical records. If a number of factors historically and physically known to influence hurricane activity are aligned to favour enhanced activity, and demonstrable skill can be shown using these factors to construct hindcasts, it would be illogical not to issue a forecast for high activity. Within the forecast, there should be space devoted for qualitative discussion on uncertainties and other factors which may come into play. One freak year does not mean the laws of physics have broken down and I don't think it is helpful to make decisions based on the extremes of a distribution instead of the bulk of it. If we have a multi-vehicle pile-up on the interstate killing 20 people, we don't immediately start questioning whether it is a good idea to allow people to operate private motor vehicles.

My comment wasn't meant to say that people's assumptions were bad. At the time only 1933 and 2005 had intense/long lived hurricanes in the same location as Beryl was, a lot of people saw that as confirmation that the forecasts were well on their way to verifying. 2024 is just a good example of how current conditions (back in late June/July) aren't necessarily a solid predictor of future conditions. It's unfortunate that many people will not understand why CSU/others made the forecasts that they did for this season. Everything seemed to point towards a historic season, no one had much of a reason to predict otherwise back in the spring/early summer.

If it makes you feel any better, the public’s perception is governed more by notable impacts than the seasonal metrics we pay attention to in the weather community. I think a lot of people out there would rank 2012, a bland year other than hurricane Sandy, higher than 2010, a prolific year with comparatively limited impacts, on the “bad season list” despite both having above average ace and 19 named storms. One or two significant impacts would probably prevent the public from getting to bent out of shape about “overhyping”, though I’d personally rather hear another grating “weathermen get paid to be wrong” joke than see those impacts actually occur.