Lull in activity during peak season

The official peak of hurricane season has arrived for the Atlantic Basin, and we are quieter than normal for the start of September. Since hurricane season began on June 1, we had to wait until June 22 to start tracking Andrea in the deep Atlantic. That storm was a tropical storm and never reached hurricane status.

As time went on, Barry formed in late June, and Chantal was both tropical storms. Out of those two, Chantal did provide some rain and two tornado warnings to ENC after the July 4th holiday. Areas in central North Caroline saw more impacts, as several inches of rain fell and a few tornado-warned storms. Once we had those named storms, we went quiet for a while until August 4-7, as Dexter formed in the middle of the Atlantic and moved towards the United Kingdom.

A few days later, after Dexter, Erin was the talk of the town as it became the fastest-strengthening storm to develop into a major hurricane within a 24-hour time frame from a Category 2 to Category 5. Areas along the Outer Banks saw some damage along the fishing piers, especially along Oceanic Pier in Atlantic Beach. Wind gusts were up to 30-45 mph. Once Erin passed by, Fernand (Fair-NAHN) was formed as another tropical storm mid-month, as a fish storm in the Atlantic, and posed no threat to land.

Since then, the tropics have been quiet, now that we are in the heart of hurricane season. Why is that? It is due to the Saharan Dust plumes off the coast of Africa that continue to prevent tropical formation at this time.

Though it is common to see these plumes of dust from time to time, the tropics are usually busy this time of year. The latest forecast guidance is showing little to no tropical activity over the next seven days, according to the National Hurricane Center. On average, our G-name storm usually forms in early September. Gabrielle is the next name.

As we go into the second half of the hurricane season, be sure to stay with WITN’s First Alert Weather Team for the latest on the named storms and if Eastern North Carolina will see any direct impacts this year.