Inactive August in eastern Pacific

[hurricanes1234]

This is a thread for you to post your views and opinions on how quiet August has been so far in the eastern Pacific. We've only had Gilma and Hector for this month, as of August 25, and they were both below Category 2 status. Gilma was interesting, but Hector made me depressed. Also, we have had a large number of failed invests for this month (or poofs, as Storm2k calls it). Again, I kindly ask of you to provide some opinions on the ePac for this month, and I beg of all registered viewers with opinions regarding this, please don't leave this thread completely blank!

[Kingarabian]

This is a thread for you to post your views and opinions on how quiet August has been so far in the eastern Pacific. We've only had Gilma and Hector for this month, as of August 25, and they were both below Category 2 status. Gilma was interesting, but Hector made me depressed. Also, we have had a large number of failed invests for this month (or poofs, as Storm2k calls it). Again, I kindly ask of you to provide some opinions on the ePac for this month, and I beg of all registered viewers with opinions regarding this, please don't leave this thread completely blank!

After Daniel... everything became dull. Daniel was seriously the best hurricane I've ever tracked. I think it will pick up soon, and I'm confident we will see a Cat.5 hurricane this season as well. The MJO is leaving so we may see a halt in the Atlantic Basin and activity in the EPac.

[hurricanes1234]

I agree with you, because last year, the activity picked up in October.

[galaxy401]

It always seems that when the Atlantic is active, the Pacific is inactive and vice versa. We'll see what this invest does.

[Hurricanehink]

It's likely because so many tropical waves developed in the Atlantic in August. The same happened in August/September 2008. There were several storms that formed in a row from tropical waves (Fay through Josephine). By contrast, the eastern Pacific in September 2008 only had two storms and had record-low ACE. That was despite 2008 PHS being a fairly active season overall.

[Yellow Evan]

This is a thread for you to post your views and opinions on how quiet August has been so far in the eastern Pacific. We've only had Gilma and Hector for this month, as of August 25, and they were both below Category 2 status. Gilma was interesting, but Hector made me depressed. Also, we have had a large number of failed invests for this month (or poofs, as Storm2k calls it). Again, I kindly ask of you to provide some opinions on the ePac for this month, and I beg of all registered viewers with opinions regarding this, please don't leave this thread completely blank!

After Daniel... everything became dull. Daniel was seriously the best hurricane I've ever tracked. I think it will pick up soon, and I'm confident we will see a Cat.5 hurricane this season as well. The MJO is leaving so we may see a halt in the Atlantic Basin and activity in the EPac.

Are you new to the EPAC since while Daniel was epic, I've seen a few better storms did that Rick and Jimena in 2009 and Ioke of 2006. If you look at HURDAT, they have been other very intense storms during the 90s and 80s (Kevin 91 is an example) that were presumably just as interesting as some of the storms we have been dealing with. Still, Daniel was quite fun. The there were Emilla and Fabio, which were alright. After that, you had a 90% bust and the EPAC entered dead mode though it briefly picked up for Gilma (very boring storm) and Hector (large, but also very boring).

Since Hector, there has been no indication of life in the EPAC at all. I think part of this is due to the the ATL storm have been absorbing most of the energy from tropical waves (like 2010). Most of the systems like Hector have formed from troughs off the Mexican coast. The few waves that are making the trip to the EPAC are small and have limited convection (and they get sheared apart by strong upper-level winds which have controlled the basin in most year since 1995 when there is no MJO). So in a sense, you can blame the MJO.

I am not sure if this is helping our hurting, but the North American Monsoon seems quite strong this year. This may explain that large number of troughs of that have formed near the Baja California coast, but other than Hector none of shown sings of development, and Hector only formed since ex-Ernesto provided increased tropical moisture along the region from what I've gathered.

This setup seems similar to the NIO, where the monsoon prevents development most of the year where it peak in May and November. As I've said, this seems to be generating troughs in levels of high shear for this time of year like off the Baja California coast, which is the southerly edge of the moonsoon. In addition, they have been a few ULL's that make the environment unfavorable for TC formation and generate a crap load of dry air west of the NAM.

Still, I would not consider this year that inactive. Let's compare this year to the past 27 years and where they were at that point in term of NS. The first row is storms at this time, while the second is total storms that year. El Nino years are bold.
2012: 8 N/A
2011: 7 11
2010: 5 8
2009: 11 20
2008: 11 18
2007: 6 11
2006: 10 19
2005: 8 15
2004: 6 11
2003: 9 16
2002: 7 14
2001: 5 15
2000: 11 19
1999: 6 9
1998: 8 14
1997: 10 19
1996: 4 8
1995: 7 10
1994: 11 20
1993: 9 15
1992: 14 28
1991: 8 14
1990: 12 21
1989: 11 18
1988: 10 18
1987: 12 20
1986: 10 18
1985: 10 24

So, looking at the data, we seem about average, and on track to get 15 storms, but the recent inactivity suggests we may not get average, if we got 2 storms in the next two months and none in November, we'd have 12 storms, which is slightly below-average.
Big note: The posts in this forum are NOT official forecast and should not be used as such. They are just the opinion of the poster and may or may not be backed by sound meteorological data. They are NOT endorsed by any professional institution or storm2k.org. For official information, please refer to the NHC and NWS products.

[hurricanes1234]

The best hurricane would probably have been Rick in 2009, but I didn't track it because I wasn't interested in tropical cyclones at that time.

[hurricanes1234]

Seems like a depression may be forming - it is producing some frigid cloudtops and has an 80% chance of development within 48 hours.

Of course, this is not an official forecast and should not be used as such.

[Yellow Evan]

Well, we our only NS below the average now.

[Kingarabian]

I've been tracking EPAC storms for 8 years (since I was 11) and while I remember that superb 09 season, I liked Daniel of 2012 the most because of how it defied all odds and managed to become a MH.

I liked Flossie of 07, Daniel of 06, and Felicia of 09 as well. But 2009 had way to much beautiful storms to nit-pick which one was better.