As I mentioned in my post on September 11, this hurricane season is already one for the record books, but for a change, it is record quiet! There still has not been a hurricane in the Atlantic... the median date of the first one is August 6, and the record latest first one was September 11.
Well, it's September 16 and there is not even a named storm out there. However, Invest 98L has been lurking east of Bermuda for a few days and at least has the potential to become the next named storm, Fay, but maybe even the first hurricane of the season.
(the name Fay has been in circulation since 2002... it replaced Fran after the 1996 season)
Tidbit: The last time we were using this list of names was 2020 and there had been 20 named storms by now, including 8 hurricanes. In 2020, Fay formed on July 9! What a difference a strong El Niño makes!
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| Satellite animation of the northwest Atlantic... Invest 98L is the swirl about 500 miles east of Bermuda (the tiny red speck). |
The National Hurricane Center is giving it a 30% probability of formation within a week, but that's a safe blend of diverging model guidance.
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| Invest 98L is currently centered at the yellow X, and the potential area of formation over the next seven days is the yellow "blob". Image from https://www.polarwx.com/tropical/ |
Some models' ensembles are not too excited about the prospects for this low pressure system, but one that stands out is the Google DeepMind ensemble, which demonstrated exceptional skill in its debut last season and is leading the pack for intensity and is among the leaders for track forecasts in this very sparse season.
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| Intensity (left) and track (right) verification for the five short-lived storms so far this season. A variety of deterministic, ensemble, and consensus aides are shown, as well as the National Hurricane Center's forecasts ("OFCL" in red). The Google DeepMind ensemble mean is "GDMI" in brown. |
Considering its demonstrated skill, even anecdotally for genesis forecasts, it's worth highlighting here.
In the morning run, it showed a 46% chance that Invest 98L becomes a tropical storm and the ensemble mean peak intensity was a Category 3 hurricane at 107 kt. That was not the maximum, that was the mean of the 1000 members.
Now, the afternoon run was less bullish with a 19% probability of development, and the average lifetime peak intensity is at 109 kt. From this we can surmise two things: 1) there are competing factors in the atmosphere that the disturbance will be very sensitive to and 2) if it manages to form, the conditions would support impressive intensification.
The forecast track is a bit odd: drifting south for the next 4 or so days, then making an abrupt turn to the north then northeast beyond that (reminiscent of Joaquin in 2015, just displaced northeast). According this current forecast, it would reach its peak intensity near Bermuda in about one week... IF it forms.
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| Member tracks and ensemble mean from the 1000-member Google DeepMind ensemble. Dots are color-coded by intensity. Image from https://tcatlas.org/realtime_ir.html |
The Accumulated Cyclone Energy is down to 6% for the date (4.4/71.9), and losing ground on climatology every day. No other hurricane season in the satellite era (past 50ish years) has been so inactive... not even close. Even prior to the satellite era when storms were more likely to have been missed, only four years were less active by now: 1941, 1929, 1914, and 1907. It's likely that they were somewhat more active than we know.
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| ACE through September 16 from 1851-2026. The climatological average by today is shown by the dashed cyan line. The bar for 2026 is shown in yellow, which you can barely see. |
Finally, a reminder about the centennial of the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 coming up on Friday the 18th... I posted about that back on August 18 and there's a link in the post to a webpage with lots of historical tidbits and new surface wind maps created by yours truly.
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