Hurricane Preparedness for 2024 Begins, and the Official Predictions are Not Good!

For all residents of Florida, hurricane season is a time filled with anticipation, dread, and planning. NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) released its forecast for the 2024 season, and it should give more reasons to get your ducks in order. Above normal hurricane activity in the Atlantic region is expected for this season, and in anticipating release, 24 storm names.

Hurricane season starts June 1 and will extend until November 30, 2024. A couple of factors played into the predictions this year, including El Nino. With only a 62 percent chance of this phenomenon developing this year, that is actually bad news. You might be scratching your head thinking that El Nino is bad, right? So why would we want that when talking about Hurricanes? It turns out that El Nino peaked this year in February and is now diminishing. As El Nino marches out of the are, that means less wind shear.

Wind shear is like the big bad protector against hurricanes. “Wind shear disrupts the energy around a hurricane, causing it to become less organized. But if there’s little to no wind shear, hurricanes can easily grow—and, potentially, turn into the types of monster storms we’ve been seeing over the last few years. Bunting cites Hurricane Otis, which slammed into Mexico after morphing from a storm with 55-mile-per-hour winds into a major hurricane with 165-mile-per-hour winds in just 24 hours, as a prime example.”

With increasing water temperatures and low wind shear, the recipe for hurricanes is prime. The current weather patterns provide the basis for an 85 percent chance of above-normal hurricane activity this season. The NOAA forecaster put the total storm formations in the 17 to 25 range, including four to seven, managing to become major hurricanes in the category three to five range. That is bad news for Florida as both coasts have the potential for damaging winds, rain, and other complications.

Right now, names are out for up to twenty-four storms, with all of us in the state hoping we don’t get to the ‘I’ names. That particular letter has been unkind to Irma, Ian, and Idalia, so the hope Isaac (this year’s ‘I’ storm name) remains at bay. Make plans early for what your storm preparedness will look like. Stay alert to changes in weather patterns being reported on, and let’s hope that the meteorologists get it wrong this year on the Suncoast.

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