The Warm Western Atlantic
The western tropical Atlantic ocean is quite warm – that is, for late February standards. But with slightly more than three months to go, it’s still too early to say whether or not these anomalously warm SSTs will persist through hurricane season.
Sea surface temperatures off the coast of the Florida keys and southeast Florida are at or above 80F. In fact, a big portion of the main development region is at or slight above 80F. The western Caribbean is in the low 80s. The Gulf of Mexico is mostly in the 70s with 60s on the northern coast. This is not unheard-of for late winter, but still much above normal.
As previously noted, SSTs in late winter aren’t going to tell you exactly what to expect during the hurricane season which begins on June 1st. We’re still slightly more than a month out from the first hurricane season forecast which will be released by the highly respected Colorado State University’s Tropical Meteorology Project. You’ll be able to view their first 2020 hurricane season forecast here on April 2nd. In the weeks and months thereafter, a flurry of hurricane season forecasts will be released and we’ll get an idea of what to expect this upcoming season.
The only forecast we have to date for the 2020 hurricane season is Tropical Storm Risk’s Extended Range Forecast which was released on December 19, 2019. However, long range forecasts 6+ months before the start of hurricane season should be taken with a grain of salt.
To date, the Climate Prediction Center continues to predict ENSO Neutral conditions to persist through Spring and possibly through the Summer.
But even ENSO forecasts this far out (from Summer 2020) can be notoriously prone to error. We have yet to cross the Spring predictability barrier.
With that said, some forecast members, as seen above, are hinting at ENSO-cool-neutral with the possibility of a weak La Nina trying to develop. If cool-neutral or La Nina conditions develop in late Summer or early Fall, this could have an effect on the upcoming hurricane season. But without knowing other important climate factors, whether or not these above average SSTs will hold, and the fact that it’s way too early to know what will happen with the state of ENSO in late summer and early Fall, our best guess, right now, is a near to slightly above average hurricane season.
Stay tuned.