Name: 'Expect more activity': An already busy hurricane season is about to kick into high gear
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'Expect more activity': An already busy hurricane season is about to kick into high gear

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The average Atlantic hurricane season creates 12 named storms. But this year, 2020, is anything but average.There have already been 11 named storms at the (almost) half-way point, and there's two tropical depressions and one “disturbance” currently being tracked. One of these tropical depressions appears to be headed toward Texas, as of Thursday at 10 a.m. CDT.With mid-August through October being the historical peak for storms, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently upped its forecast to as many as 25 named storms before the 2020 season ends Nov. 30.“We’re looking already at a very, very active season so far,” said Isha Renta, a National Weather Service forecaster. “And as we head into the peak of the hurricane season, which is upcoming in the next month, we can definitely expect more activity.”In May, NOAA had forecast up to 19 named storms.TEXAS FLOOD MAP:&nbsp;There are several factors contributing to this especially active season, Renta said. First, there’s a possible La Niña developing in the next couple of months. La Niña condition occurs when surface water in the equatorial regions of the eastern Pacific Ocean becomes cooler than normal. La Niña can enhance hurricane activity in the Atlantic, whereas the opposite condition, El Niño, helps to suppress hurricane activity.There are also warmer-than-normal surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, which acts as fuel for hurricanes. And the west African monsoon is above average, meaning tropical waves coming from Africa into the Caribbean are going to be stronger.“We’re looking into different factors that are coming together for this season,” Renta said, “(which is) expected to be one of the most active ones.”It’s the warmer sea temperatures that’s most concerning for Jim Blackburn, co-director of the Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters Center at Rice University. He said heat in the water can lead to the massive intensification of storms.“(Hurricane) Harvey almost went away over the Yucatán Peninsula,” Blackburn said, “and then reemerged in the Bay of Campeche and intensified almost overnight from a tropical system to a Cat 4 storm. That rapid intensification is what really worries me.”He said the sheer number of this year’s named storms means the number of big storms could increase. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Weather Service, is forecasting 19 to 25 named storms, of which seven to 11 could become hurricanes including three to six major hurricanes with winds of 111 mph or greater.Of the 11 named storms thus far, only two have becomes hurricanes (Hanna and Isaias). The rest have been tropical storms.The was tracking two tropical depressions and one disturbance as of Thursday at 10 a.m. CDT. One of these tropical depressions, over the central Caribbean Sea, is on a trajectory that has historically led storms toward Texas. It's expected to move into the south-central Gulf of Mexico as a tropical storm on Sunday.More for youBased on past storms, Blackburn said storms that move between the Yucatán Peninsula — which has parts of Mexico, Belize and Guatemala — and Cuba have “a higher likelihood of coming into the Texas coast with that type of trajectory.”On HoustonChronicle.com:The National Weather Service office for Houston and Galveston said there is still a lot of uncertainty this far out, but the latest forecast calling for the tropical depression to gradually organize and strengthen "increases the chances of impacts early next week along the upper TX Coast."The tropical depression, east of the Windward Islands, appears more likely to curve up into the northeast Gulf of Mexico and Florida region, according to the Thursday morning update.Ultimately, there are this hurricane season. If there are more than 21 storms with winds of at least 39 mph, which most recently happened in 2005 with 27 named storms, they are named using the Greek alphabet — Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, etc.This article was updated Thursday morning with the latest information from the National Hurricane Center.

The average Atlantic hurricane season creates 12 named storms. But this year, 2020, is anything but average.There have already been 11 named storms at the (almost) half-way point, and there's two tropical depressions and one “disturbance” currently being tracked. One of these tropical depressions appears to be headed toward Texas, as of Thursday at 10 a.m. CDT.With mid-August through October being the historical peak for storms, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently upped its forecast to as many as 25 named storms before the 2020 season ends Nov. 30.“We’re looking...

'Expect more activity': An already busy hurricane season is about to kick into high gear

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