Fay lingers, Gonzalo dissipates, Hanna forms

The title of the post makes it sounds like there is a lot of activity.  There isn't.

Fay is a stubborn tropical depression that isn't strengthening or weakening, Gonzalo dissipated about 1.5 days after it formed, and Hanna formed on Monday morning in the north-central Atlantic. It too is forecast to dissipate within a couple of days.

Image from https://www.polarwx.com/tropical/

There is no hint of real activity in the long-range models, so we will likely make it well into October without a single hurricane, and then the odds start dwindling quickly if the Caribbean is shut down due to the El Niño-induced strong vertical wind shear there.

It would be unprecedented in the satellite era and even in the past century to have a hurricane season with no hurricanes. In the past century (1926-2025) the fewest number of hurricanes in a season is two, and that happened in 1930, 1982, and 2013. Among those three years, only 1982 and 2013 were during the more reliable satellite era. So even if this season manages to crank out a single hurricane, it would still be a record.

Just to provide some additional context, the record number of hurricanes in a season is 15, and the average is 7. Today is actually the climatological date of the 5th hurricane formation.

The track map through today is shown below, keeping in mind that Fay and Hanna are still active tropical cyclones... barely.

Whenever the next storm forms, the next name on the list is Isaias. In 2020, the last time this list of names was used, Isaias formed on July 30.

• Visit the Tropical Atlantic Headquarters.
• Subscribe to get these updates emailed to you.
• Follow me on Bluesky

September will end and still no hurricane this season

There's not too much to report in this post, so it will be brief. Fay is a dissipating tropical depression, and since my last post on Thursday, Gonzalo formed and dissipated near Cabo Verde.

12-hour infrared satellite animation from September 26.

Gonzalo was the 7th named storm of the season, though it only lasted for two days. In fact, there have been named storms for a TOTAL of 13.25 "named storm days" this season, which is 27% of average for the date.

Amazingly, the hurricane drought continues with nothing in the foreseeable future.  No hurricane season has gotten this far along without a hurricane in the past century, and during the more reliable satellite era (mid-1970s), the previous record latest first hurricane formation was September 11.

With both Fay and Gonzalo active as tropical storms on September 25, it became the most active day of the entire season so far, in terms of both named storm activity and Accumulated Cyclone Energy. The ACE is up to 10.4% of average for the date. If nothing forms in the meantime, it will slip to 9% of average on October 8.

Looks like I picked an easy year as my final year for writing this blog!

• Visit the Tropical Atlantic Headquarters.
• Subscribe to get these updates emailed to you.
• Follow me on Bluesky

Still watching Fay, and Gonzalo could be on the near horizon

Two features of interest in this post: Tropical Storm Fay and Invest 90L -- which has a shot as becoming the next named storm, Gonzalo.

Since my previous post on Monday, Fay actually dissipated on Tuesday afternoon and then regenerated on Wednesday afternoon. It's currently a tropical storm located about 1000 miles west-southwest of the Azores and moving slowly toward the west. It could intensify slightly today, but is not expected to get close to hurricane intensity, before it starts weakening again.

Fay is expected to dissipate, again, on Saturday. We'll see if it sticks this time.

Elsewhere, Invest 90L is the wave I discussed in Monday's post. It is currently just barely off the African coast, southeast of the Cabo Verde Islands and is forecast to move toward the northwest in the coming days.

In a normal year, these large robust tropical waves would be cause for potential concern in 10-14 days on the other side of the Atlantic basin, but this is not one of those years, thanks to the developing very strong El Niño which has suppressed activity across the deep tropics so far this season.

This has pretty decent model support to develop into the next named storm, Gonzalo, rather soon. After that, dry air and vertical wind shear will start to impact it and it could dissipate later in the weekend. There is no model support for it reaching hurricane intensity, which means the record hurricane drought in the Atlantic continues.

Fay's resurgence has nudged the Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) up to 8% of average for the date... still a record-low value for this point in the season by a big margin during the reliable satellite era (mid-1970s).  Prior to the satellite era when some activity was certainly missed, only three years were lower: 1914, 1907, and 1905.

  

• Visit the Tropical Atlantic Headquarters.
• Subscribe to get these updates emailed to you.
• Follow me on Bluesky