2022 is Atlantic hurricane season's least active start in 30 years

Jonathan Erdman
The Weather Channel
Tue, 23 Aug 2022 10:32 UTC

© NASA

Hurricane Bonnie off the coast of Mexico on July 4, 2022.

The 2022 Atlantic hurricane season is off to its quietest start in 30 years, but history suggests it won't end up that way.

After a pair of western Gulf tropical disturbances failed to develop the past two weekends, we remain stuck on three named storms so far this season: Alex, Bonnie and Colin.

While the number of storms isn't pacing far below the season-to-date average, Colorado State University tropical scientist Phil Klotzbach pointed out it was the first time in 40 years that no named storms formed from July 3 - August 22 in the Atlantic Basin.

Another metric meteorologists use to gauge a season's activity has also flatlined.

As of Aug. 20, the 2022 hurricane season's ACE index is pacing the lowest of any year since 1992, according to Kim Wood, associate professor at Mississippi State University.

Short for Accumulated Cyclone Energy, the ACE index sums up how long storms last and how intense they become, instead of just raw counts of storms. Each of the Atlantic Basin's three storms was relatively weak and short-lived, though Bonnie went on to become a hurricane in the Eastern Pacific Basin.

© NOAA/NHC

2022 Atlantic hurricane season tracks, through Aug. 22. Black lines indicate when each system was either a tropical wave, disturbance, potential tropical cyclone, or a remnant.

Sinking, dry, dust-laden air from Africa's Sahara Desert - a typical suppressing factor early in the hurricane season - has pushed westward across the Atlantic Basin through July. But that dry air has also persisted well into August.

Klotzbach also noted a stubborn TUTT, short for tropical upper tropospheric trough, has been in place over the central Atlantic, providing dry air and wind shear that are both hostile for tropical development.

Notable Storms In Quieter-Starting Seasons

A slow-starting hurricane season does not necessarily mean the rest of the season will be a dud.

Among the five other seasons in the satellite era (since 1966) that were less active at this point than 2022, Wood pointed out one was 1992. By Aug. 22, 1992, Andrew became a hurricane, then slammed into South Florida as one of only four hurricanes to hit the mainland U.S. at Category 5 intensity.

After 1988's slow start, Gilbert became the most intense Atlantic Basin hurricane at the time (later surpassed by Wilma) before slamming Cancún, then northeastern Mexico. That was followed just over a month later by Category 4 Hurricane Joan in Nicaragua.

Hurricanes Diana, Anita and Beulah each developed shortly after early-season slumbers in 1984, 1977 and 1967, respectively, each with impacts in parts of the Caribbean, Mexico and the U.S.

© Kim Wood/Mississippi State University

ACE index for 2022 (green line) vs. other seasons with less than 50% of average ACE through Aug. 20 in red lines.

Don't Let Your Guard Down

Klotzbach pointed out that 90% of all Category 3 or stronger Atlantic Basin hurricanes have happened after Aug. 20.

Last year, 13 of the season's 21 named storms and four of the seven hurricanes formed after Aug. 20. This included Hurricane Ida, which made a Category 4 landfall in Louisiana, then triggered massive flash flooding in the Northeast.

Frequency of named storms (bright red), hurricanes (maroon), and major (Cat. 3+) hurricanes (darkest maroon) through the hurricane season. The yellow line indicates approximately Aug. 22.

One of the stronger August La Niñas in play in 12 years is another reason the season could turn busier soon.

La Niña typically enhances the amount of activity seen during hurricane season compared to its counter-phase, El Niño, which causes stronger shearing winds aloft that limit tropical storm and hurricane growth.

If you're along the East or Gulf coasts, the time to be ready for tropical storms and hurricanes is now. Information about hurricane preparedness can be found here.

Comment: In Earth Changes and the Human-Cosmic, Pierre Lescaudron details how, with the grounding of our planetary current and low solar activity, that drives hurricane activity, this was to be expected, however there's still the possibility that a spike in solar activity could cause a sudden and powerful resurgence:

The accumulation of cometary dust in the Earth's atmosphere plays an important role in the increase of tornadoes, cyclones, hurricanes and their associated rainfalls, snowfalls and lightning. To understand this mechanism we must first take into account the electric nature of hurricanes, tornadoes and cyclones, which are actually manifestations of the same electric phenomenon at different scales or levels of power.

[...]

Discharge magnitude

While air spirals (tornadoes and hurricanes) have been more frequent since the end of the 1980s and should be more frequent in coming years because of the ongoing increase in atmospheric cometary dust, very powerful discharges, like Category 5 hurricanes, should not necessarily increase.

Category 5 hurricanes last for days and enable massive transfer of energy (charge rebalancing) between the ionosphere and the Earth's surface. So the main energetic source for major hurricanes is the electric potential difference between the Earth and its ionosphere. Reduced solar activity means a less (positively) charged ionosphere, which means reduced electric potential difference between the ionosphere and the Earth which means less frequent category 5 hurricanes. After studying the tropical-storm records made over the last 150 years, Robert Lund reached a similar conclusion concerning the strength of the storms:

'This is a hot button in the argument for global warming,' said Lund. 'Climatologists reporting to the U.S. Senate as recently as this summer testified to the exact opposite of what we find. Many researchers have maintained that warming waters of the Atlantic are increasing the strengths of these storms. We do not see evidence for this at all, however we do find that the number of storms has recently increased.' The study represents one of the first rigorous statistical assessments of the issue with uncertainty margins calculated in.¹

[...]

The study of tornado statistics in the U.S. leads to a similar result. The chart below was compiled from data provided by NOAA.¹ While the overall number of tornadoes shows a steady increase since 2002 (green ascending bars and curve), the number of powerful tornadoes (purple bar and line) has been relatively constant. As a result, the percentage of violent tornadoes is decreasing.²

As seen previously¹, two opposing factors may modulate solar activity. On one side, an approaching Nemesis would tend to reduce the Sun's activity because of 'grounding'; on the other side, an accompanying cometary swarm would tend to increase solar activity because of comet-triggered solar discharges.

In recent years the Sun has been unusually quiet, which suggests that, overall, the Nemesis-grounding factor overpowers the comet-discharge factor. Hence a reduced frequency in major hurricanes (since, as seen above, solar activity is the main driver for major hurricanes). However this is not always the case: the Sun can still experience major activity spikes.

To find out what can cause these spikes, along with much, much more, check out the book, and the following SOTT podcast: Behind the Headlines: Earth changes in an electric universe: Is climate change really man-made?