Where Are All The Hurricanes? They're Unfortunately Still On The Way

Satellite view of Hurricane Beryl in the Caribbean
on July 2. Since then, there has pretty much been
no tropical storm activity in the Atlantic. But experts
say the forecasted very busy hurricane season is
still on the way, with things likely ramping up 
big time during August. 

This year's hurricane season got off to its expected horrible start in late June when Hurricane Beryl, the strongest hurricane in the Caribbean for so early in the season, started its horrible path of catastrophe in the Windward Islands. 

On into early July, Beryl caused disaster and heartache in Jamaica, Mexico, Texas (especially the Houston area), Arkansas, the Ohio Valley, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Nova Scotia. 

Since then, pretty much nothing, thank goodness. Except a nothing burger Tropical Storm Chris on June 30, which lasted barely 12 hours and never produced winds much above tropical storm force. 

This has people asking, "I thought this was supposed to be a super-charged, incredibly busy hurricane season."  

As recently as July 9, the closely watched Colorado State University seasonal hurricane forecast was updated to actually slightly increase the expected number of storms from its previous already record breaking busy prediction. 

So where are the tropical storms and hurricanes? As of Wednesday afternoon, the National Hurricane Center was forecasting no tropical storm development for at least 48 hours, probably even more. 

Ominously, they're still coming. 

Let's just say the National Hurricane Center isn't granting any PTO to its employees in August, September and October. 

After Beryl's departure, vast clouds of dust from the Sahara Desert blew westward across the Atlantic Ocean, precisely in the band in the tropics where hurricanes are most likely to form. 

Saharan dust tends to stifle tropical storm development. These clouds of Saharan dust over the Atlantic are very common in June and July, which is one reason why tropical storms and hurricanes are relatively rare during the first half of summer. 

This year's July dust is by one measure the second-densest since 2002.  However, like virtually every year in history, the dust is getting set to sharply diminish as we head into August.  That'll help tropical storms form. 

There's also a natural cycle that happens every few weeks in which the air over the areas in the Atlantic where hurricanes want to form that causes sinking air. Sinking air prevents the thunderstorms that are wannabe tropical storms from forming. 

That sinking cycle has been over the storm forming region recently, but is now starting to move on. 

So: The dust is going away, the sinking air is going away, the oceans keep heating up more and more, and that's jet fuel for hurricanes.  We're also shifting into a global La Nina pattern which should really start to gets its legs steady in August. 

All those signs point to the Atlantic Ocean exploding with storms during August, especially in the second half, when hurricanes really start to form easily in normal years, much less setups like we're seeing now. 

Already, some long range forecasts are starting to detect signs of a possible tropical storm or storms forming in the first week of August. 

Where all the expected tropical storms and hurricanes go will determine whether we'll have more disasters and calamities like Beryl. 

Saharan Dust Turns European Skies, Snow Orange

Dust from the Sahara Desert turned this cross country ski
course in Switzerland orange. Photo by Salvator Di Nolfi/EPA

 The sky and the snow turned orange in some parts of Europe last week and weekend   The reason? Dust from the Sahara desert swept in from the south. 

The dust turned the sky orange over parts of France, Switzerland, Spain and other parts of Europe. The dust and sand settled on ski areas up in the mountains, turning the snow orange as well. 

Dust from the Sahara Desert does get blown into Europe a few times a year. This episode was more pronounced than usual.  

In this case, a storm strengthened over far southwestern Europe. This produced southerly winds over parts of the Sahara Desert that picked up some pretty big plumes of dust. The south winds blew across the Mediterranean Sea and into Europe, where the dust created the orange haze and sifted down from the sky and onto high elevation ski slopes. 

That dust in the snow can make it melt a little faster in the spring.  White snow reflects the sun's energy back out to space. Darker colors in the snow absorb the heat, making the snow melt faster. 

Sahara Desert dust really gets around, by the way. It sometimes goes as far north as the United Kingdom.

In the summer and autumn, huge plumes of dust sometimes go east to west across the Atlantic Ocean, squelching hurricane activity and causing hazy skies in the Caribbean Sea and parts of South and North America, including the United States.