‘High Season’

It will be an “extremely” active Atlantic basin hurricane season which starts on June 1, US weather researchers have predicted. But Director of the Barbados Meteorological Services, Sabu Best, has vowed to bring the country up to date not only on how the cyclones are likely to impact householders and businesses here but also on extreme heat.

In its first forecast for the 2024 season released on Thursday, Colorado State University (CSU) anticipates 11 hurricanes, five of which are expected to be major, reaching category 3-5 strength with sustained winds of 111 miles per hour or greater.

This is the highest prediction for hurricanes that CSU has ever issued in their April outlook. The previous highest April forecast was for nine hurricanes, which has been called for several times since the university began issuing April forecasts in 1995.

Pointing out that the CSU forecast is for the entire Atlantic region, Best told Barbados TODAY that his focus will be on Barbados and its closest Eastern Caribbean neighbours when he presents a comprehensive forecast later this month.

The US experts said there will be 23 named storms in compared to an average of 14.4 in a 29-year period from 1991 in a well above-average Atlantic hurricane season.

The team cites record warm tropical and eastern subtropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures as a primary factor for their prediction of 11 hurricanes this year.

“When waters in the eastern and central tropical and subtropical Atlantic are much warmer than normal in the spring, it tends to force a weaker subtropical high and associated weaker winds blowing across the tropical Atlantic,” the CSU forecasters said.

These conditions will likely lead to a continuation of well above-average water temperatures in the tropical Atlantic for the peak of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season.”

“A very warm Atlantic favours an above-average season, since a hurricane’s fuel source is warm ocean water. In addition, a warm Atlantic leads to lower atmospheric pressure and a more unstable atmosphere. Both conditions favour hurricanes,” they advised.

The tropical Pacific which is now experiencing the cyclical El Niño phenomenon is likely to transition to La Niña conditions by the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season from August to October.

La Niña tends to decrease upper-level westerly winds across the Caribbean into the tropical Atlantic.

These decreased upper-level winds result in reduced vertical wind shear, favouring Atlantic hurricane formation and intensification. Given the combined hurricane-favourable signals of an extremely warm Atlantic and a likely developing La Niña, the forecast team has higher-than-normal confidence for an April outlook that the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season will be very active.

The CSU team stressed that the April outlook historically employs the lowest level of skill of its seasonal hurricane forecasts, given the considerable changes that can occur in the atmosphere-ocean between April and the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season from August to October.

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb