ORLANDO, Fla. – The Atlantic was quiet until it wasn’t. Debby intensified into a hurricane prior to making to landfall in Florida’s Big Bend early Monday morning. Debby is the second hurricane of the 2024 season. It is expected to bring nearly 2 feet of rain to parts of Georgia and South Carolina as it slowly meanders along and near the southeast U.S.
The National Hurricane Center also has another system highlighted in the eastern Caribbean. Tropical development will be possible in the western Caribbean and extreme southwest Gulf of Mexico over the next seven days.
The concern? Debby and this new tropical wave are around when the Atlantic basin isn’t that conducive for development.
That will change very soon, unfortunately. After a historically quiet start to the Pacific hurricane season, there are four active tropical systems as of Aug. 5.
These were born from a convective pulse known as the Madden-Julian Oscillation.
This region of showers and thunderstorms circles the globe every 30-60 days and helps to either enhance or suppress tropical activity depending upon what part of the world the entity is in.
By the middle of August, the enhanced phase of the MJO will move into the Atlantic basin.
This enhancement coinciding with the climatological peak of hurricane season will likely cause tropical activity to sharply increase during the last couple of weeks of August and into the start of September.
The Atlantic hurricane season is running about two weeks ahead of schedule. The fourth named storm of the season typically forms around Aug. 15.
The peak of hurricane season is Sept. 10 and runs through November.