Two for the season: Hurricane Blanca is here!

The 2015 East Pacific hurricane season is off with a bang: two hurricanes in less than three weeks since it ‘officially’ started on 15 May.

Historically the East Pacific sub-basin has been a region of active cyclogenesis, where 58 tropical cyclones were generated over the past four years, 20 of them in 2014.

It would appear the 2015 season may be a continuation of this pattern of activity. Today, Wednesday 3 June, we find that Tropical Depression #2 strengthened rapidly during the night and it is now Hurricane BLANCA, the second named tropical cyclone of a season that is barely 19 days old. Farther west there is ANDRES now downgraded to tropical storm strength.

Hurricane BLANCA is moving generally NNW in a favorable ocean-atmosphere environment with good possibility of strengthening to major hurricane intensity in the next 24-48 hours as it aims for Baja California Sur in Mexico.

To the south and southeast of BLANCA there are numerous cells of stormy weather off the coast of Central America and Panama, and farther to the east there are tropical waves, rain cells and other disturbed weather over northern South America and far over the Atlantic along ‘Hurricane Alley’, the Eastern Atlantic south of the Cape Verde Islands and over equatorial Africa. So there is plenty of fuel for future potential cyclonic development in the Eastern Pacific. We will have to keep an eye of what happens in  this region.

Elsewhere, there is a large cell of stormy weather over the Central Caribbean that is already affecting Cuba and the Florida Straights with plenty of rain.  Farther east over the Eastern Atlantic and Equatorial Africa the ‘tropical wave assembly line’ is already active.

There is also a large and still disorganized, but menacing looking, region of disturbed weather over the Central Pacific ocean, which merits observation and follow-up over the next day or so as it is showing some signs of potential cyclonic development.

This is what is happening today in the northern tropics worldwide. There are several months left while the Sun is over the northern hemisphere and the world oceans store all of that heat energy, which may contribute to cyclogenesis. On the other hand there are a developing El Niño over the Pacific,  global warming and other potential triggers and contributors to cyclogenesis to contend with.

So, to all interests in vulnerable island nations and coastal regions worldwide I say, be prepared, remain alert, MITIGATE!