It's Been A Odd Tropical Storms, Hurricanes Season And The Weirdness Continues

Powerful Hurricane Erin in the central Atlantic Ocean
back on August 16. It's been a really weird 
hurrican

We're nearing the end of Atlantic hurricane season, with just a month and a half to go before things should get safer for another year. 

There's still a chance that more hurricanes could form and even threaten the United States. 

But as it stands now, we're lucky. So far at least, this is the first year since 2015 without a hurricane striking the U.S. coastline.

We needed the break. 

That's not to say tropical storms and hurricanes haven't messed with the U.S.

Moisture from brief, weak tropical storm Barry was a key ingredient into the horrible, deadly Texas floods over the Fourth of July weekend. 

Also in July, Tropical Storm Chantal splashed ashore in South Carolina in July, causing flooding in the Carolinas.

And, offshore Hurricanes Erin, Gabrielle and Humberto sent waves slamming into the U.S. East Coast, sending nearly a Outer Banks, North Carolina dozen homes crashing into the ocean.

This has been a weird hurricane season. It's always been go big or go home. Tropical systems in the Atlantic have either been brief, weak nothingburgers or monsters.

The monsters have all taken a turn north far offshore of the United States. Had this weather pattern been 400 or 500 miles further west, the East Coast would have been raked by repeated strong hurricanes. 

It's been weirder in recent weeks than earlier in the season. We had the drama of Hurricanes Humberto and Imelda setting a record for Atlantic hurricanes being so close to each other. That led to a strange dance between the two storms that changed their directions, and alternately strengthened and weakened both. 

Then we had Tropical Storm Jerry. The disturbance that became Jerry emerged from the west coast of Africa more than a week ago, That's awfully late in the season for something like that to happen.

The African disturbances that can turn into powerful hurricanes usually shut down by the end of September. 

Forecasters originally had high hopes for this storm, figuring Jerry would turn into a decent sized hurricane. But, strong upper level winds keep tearing the storm apart. It stayed a weak tropical storm until it dissipated over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean this past weekend.  

Then we had little-noticed Subtropical Storm Karen. 

Subtropical Storm Karen formed last Thursday, strangely far north in the Atlantic Ocean, at 44.5 degrees north 33 degrees west. That's about the same latitude as Nova Scotia. That's the furthest north such a storm has formed in at least 150 years. 

Subtropical storms are hybrids of the warm core storms that are true tropical storms and regular old storms that have warm and cold fronts and such. 

The water was actually "too cold" to support a tropical or subtropical storm. But because of a pocket of cold air high overhead was such a contrast to the tepid waters below that we were able to get Subtropical Storm Karen. 

It was so far north that its life was a short one. It dissipated Saturday. 

Now we have Tropical Storm Lorenzo, which outdid Jerry for being an incredibly late season African-born storm. 

As of this morning, Lorenzo was struggling just like Jerry did. Stronger upper level winds and dry air are tearing Lorenzo apart. If the storm survives these troubles, it'll head slowly northward and the northeastward out in the middle of the Atlantic.  It won't bother anyone. 

Some models bring a tropical storm or hurricane to the Caribbean Sea or far eastern Gulf of Mexico in a couple weeks, but those long range predictions are notoriously unreliable.