MS Coast’s hurricane season has been quiet so far. Forecasters say that could soon change

All is quiet in the Atlantic Ocean.

At least for now, meteorologists said this week. They once predicted this hurricane season would unleash 17 to 25 named storms. So far, it has created five. Forecasters stood by those predictions this month and say they are waiting for a surge in the tropics that could come in September and October. They are also pleading with residents skeptical of the extraordinary forecast to not tempt fate just yet.

“Enjoy the silence,” meteorologist Michael Lowry wrote in his newsletter on Monday. “Because we know it will soon pick up again.”

The National Hurricane Center is predicting no activity for the next seven days. Forecasters acknowledged the season so far has been quieter than predicted. But few are ready to jinx the forecast. The National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration updated its numbers just barely at the start of August: The agency now predicts 17 to 24 named storms by the season’s end on November 30.

If this week’s forecast holds, next Monday would be the first time since 1956 that the end of August passed with no Atlantic storms, Lowry said.

“That’s not exactly what we would’ve anticipated for late August and in the opening days of September during one of the most active hurricane seasons ever forecast,” he wrote.

But he said breathing relief now would be like declaring victory “12 minutes into the first quarter of a 60-minute football game.”

Activity dulled by Saharan dust

The latest lull is caused by dry air near Africa, meteorologists said. Disturbances that would normally spin west are launching so far north off the African Coast that they are disappearing into cooler temperatures and heavy Saharan dust.

“They’re so far north that they’re interacting with a lot of dry air,” said Tyler Stanfield, a meteorologist at the National Weather Center in Slidell. “ They basically all just fall apart as they get off of Africa.”

That could change in the first two weeks of September. A “collision zone” where the beginnings of many tropical storms first take shape will move south through September at the same time Saharan dust settles, Lowry said. A southern shift of the North African Monsoon would lead to stronger, longer-lasting thunderstorms that would fuel tropical development, Stanfield said.

It is unclear how a busier tropics might impact the Mississippi Coast. Forecasts are uncertain until a storm is several days out. The last storm to hit the region was Hurricane Ida in 2021.

“Nothing screams the switch will be turned on,” Weather Channel meteorologist Jim Cantore wrote Monday on social media .

But any system that makes it off Africa’s coast would likely strengthen like other storms have already, Stanfield said. In July, Hurricane Beryl used favorable winds and hot ocean water to grow quickly into the earliest Category 5 storm ever recorded. This month, Hurricane Debby curved through the warm Florida coast and struck the state’s Big Bend region, then drowned states across the southeastern U.S. with record rainfall.

Is slow August hurricane season normal?

Eighty percent of tropical activity comes after August 26, forecasters warned. The season’s peak is September 10.

“To taunt this season right now would be foolish,” Lowry said.

Lulls are normal. In 2023, no storms formed from late July through mid-August, then four storms developed in less than two days at the end of the month, according to The Weather Channel. In 2022, forecasters said the Atlantic went 60 days with no tropical depression, named storm or hurricane but ended with Hurricane Ian — one of the worst storms in recent history.

All of which suggests it is too early to tell what September could bring, Stanfield said.

“It’s worth being wary.”