For a hurricane to organize and gain strength, the weather conditions have to be just right. Normally, hurricanes like low-shear environments with a lot of warm/hot sea waters which bring plenty of very moist air mass. And La Nina (negative ENSO phase) helps those to maintain and develop.
The very concerning part of the forecast for the upcoming hurricane season is the high chance (almost 70 percent) of a major hurricane landfall along the United States coastline, and nearly 60 percent for the Caribbean. A typical season has about fifty-fifty probability of the US mainland getting hit. Something to consider and be hurricane aware of as we enter the new Atlantic hurricane season in less than a month and a half from now.
Such forecast is surely not something the residents of the US Gulf Coast and the Caribbean region want to hear. Not after such a devastating and record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season in recent years. Let’s just remember a devastating hurricane Laura in Louisiana, or Eta and Iota in central America, or also a destructive hurricane Michael in 2018.
2020 ATLANTIC HURRICANE SEASON WAS EXCEPTIONAL, COULD IT REPEAT THIS YEAR?
If we remember the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, it was setting record after record with so many storms forming. It was almost too hard to keep track of all the activity. The 2020 storms have used all the designated tropical cyclone names and dug deep into the Greek Alphabet storm names.
And to top those numbers, a record-breaking 11 storms made landfall in the United States, including 6 hurricanes. Those were Hanna, Isaias, Laura, Sally, Delta, and Zeta.
Last year has reached an unpreceded 30 named storms, an absolute record-breaking number of storms in one season. The final storm was a Major hurricane Iota which has become the first and also the only Category 5 storm of the Atlantic hurricane season 2020.
It peaked in the middle of the western Caribbean Sea but made a catastrophic landfall in Nicaragua, Central America on Nov 16th. It even set the lowest pressure of the whole hurricane season – 917 mbar during its peak strength while undergoing rapid intensification with the maximum sustained winds of 160 mph.
Hurricane Iota was the 13th hurricane and the 6th major hurricane, also the latest Atlantic calendar year Category 5 hurricane on record. And at the same time, it was the 2nd major hurricane to form in November 2020, soon after hurricane Eta. There are no hurricane seasons on record that have had two major hurricane formations in the month of November!
The most notable US mainland landfall was made by the high-end Category 4 hurricane Laura at the end of August 2020. It was the strongest landfall for Louisiana over more than 150 years, with catastrophic winds, storm surge, and flooding along the coastline.
Laura was also the 2nd deadliest storm of the 2020 hurricane season, with 77 reported fatalities along its path from Haiti to Louisiana and Texas. The deadliest hurricane was Eta with a death toll of 211 across Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico in early November. The third deadliest hurricane was Iota, with officially 61 reported fatalities.
Iota was also the record-breaking 9th named storm from the Greek alphabet list, ending the list well above the previous record of 6 named storms, set back in the Atlantic hurricane season 2005.
Below are the designated names reserved for the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season, these include 21 names starting with Ana and ending with Wanda. The Atlantic tropical cyclones had been named from lists originated by the National Hurricane Center, and are in use since 1953.
Tropical cyclone names are maintained and updated by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization. The hurricane name lists are used in rotation and re-cycled every six years. So the list used in the 2021 year will be used again in 2027.
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