DAYTON — Hurricane season begins on June 1 and El Nino is likely to have a big impact on this year’s activity. Hey it’s Storm Center 7 Meteorologist Ryan Marando.
Colorado State University has come out with their forecast for this hurricane season. They are calling for a below average year with 13 named storms (14.4 on average), six hurricanes (7.2 on average), and two major hurricanes (3.2 on average).
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This is likely to do with us turning back to an El Nino pattern. This is when the ocean sea surface temperatures off the equatorial South American coast trend above average. That large amount of heat in the ocean changes weather patterns across the world.
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The reason El Nino can have a large impact on hurricanes is it usually increases the trade winds across the tropical Atlantic. Hurricanes don’t like strong trade winds as they can rip the storm apart. So while it may be a below average year as a whole, remember it only takes one bad, landfalling storm to make it an impactful year.