Official start: the 2015 Atlantic Hurricane Season!

Here we go again imposing human constraints on what Mother Nature does well on her own, by declaring the 2015 Atlantic Hurricane Season if officially open today 1 June 2015! This despite the fact that ANA marked an early start of the 2015 Atlantic season when it became the first named storm of 2015 in the Atlantic basin early in May of this year.

So, how is Mother Nature behaving in terms of cyclonic activity as we give her the ‘green light’ to begin the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season?

Infrared satellite image of 1 June 2015 showing Hurricane ANDRES and Tropical depression #2 over the Eastern Pacific off the coast of Mexico

Taking a worldwide look at the northern tropics on this 1st day of June 2015 we see a strengthening Hurricane Andres, the first-named tropical cyclone of the East Pacific 2015 hurricane season, which is moving WNW toward the area of Hawaii. Also in this area and not far from ANDRES we see a nearly stationary Tropical Depression #2 some 500 kilometers west of the resort of Acapulco, Mexico. So the East Pacific season is off to a busy start.

Projected track for Hurricane ANDRES {courtesy of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory)

Also in the Pacific basin, but farther south from where Andres and TD #2 are located, we see an expanding and strengthening  El Niño reaching from the central Pacific to the coastline of South America. This anomaly will undoubtedly have effects on weather patterns in regions as far away as India, where the annual monsoon has already been delayed leading to a  heat wave that has claimed more than 1500 lives, to the Atlantic where the hurricane season is expected to be dampened somewhat.

Chart showing anomalies in sea surface temperatures generated by the growing El Nino during the month of May 2015

Elsewhere the various sub-basins where cyclogenesis takes place are quiet today, but there are plenty of tropical waves, rain and storm cells that presage the possibility of future cyclonic activity in regions such as the Northwest Pacific, where the Philippines and other nations have already been impacted this year, or the northern Indian Ocean.

Closer to us here in Florida, the Atlantic is already showing elongated areas of  rain and disturbed weather populating the southern fringe of ‘Hurricane alley’ pushed westward by tropical waves emerging from Equatorial Africa. This pattern will gradually shift northward as summer approaches and the season progresses allowing potential future storms to aim for the Caribbean and the several vulnerable coastal regions in Central America and the Yucatan as well as island nation.

Infrared satellite image of 1 June 2015 showing disturbed weather activity along the southern fringe of ‘Hurricane Alley’ from near the east coast of South America to the west coast of Africa

To highlight the ‘official’ start of the 2015 Atlantic Hurricane Season we have recently seen the seasonal forecasts issued by NOAA, the folks in Colorado and others, which all coincide in projecting as a ‘below normal’ season, whatever the meaning of ‘normal’ is. In the end, as most of us well know, Mother Nature will do what it takes to balance the extremes that may emerge over the next six months in the coupled ocean-atmosphere environment.

So, this is the worldwide picture of cyclonic activity today. What the 1 June official start of the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season really is,  is a reminder that all of us in hurricane vulnerable communities to be prepared, remain alert, and to practice mitigation in order to reduce the potential for damage from the expected impacts of tropical cyclones generated over the waters of the Atlantic.