Tropical activity could start in the first week of the 2024 hurricane season
Hurricane season hasn't even officially started yet, but AccuWeather forecasters are already watching an area of concern for development in the Caribbean.
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00:00Welcome back to AccuWeather Ahead. Let's take a look at the tropical outlook here
00:04across the Atlantic and into the Caribbean. We're looking at nearly
00:08record-warm waters. In fact, it is actually a record warm mean water
00:13temperature for this whole chunk of the Atlantic right now. If we look at where
00:16we are on the calendar, this early in the season, this is the warmest we have been
00:19historically. Two and a half to four and a half degrees above average. And, you
00:24know, it's been fortunate that we have not seen any preseason storms this year
00:28despite the warmth. But, again, you may have a whole lot of sugar sitting on the
00:32counter and that doesn't mean you're gonna necessarily have a batch of
00:34cookies. The warm water is one of the big factors, one of the big ingredients, but
00:38there are also some competing factors like wind shear. We've had too much
00:41wind shear. We've had a lot of dry air out there that has also prevented us
00:44from seeing any early season storms or preseason storms. Now, we could still see
00:49some early season action. In fact, we likely will. And around the end of next
00:53week, we'll be watching for this general zone here around the western end of
00:58Hispaniola into Jamaica and into eastern parts of Cuba into the Turks and Caicos,
01:02eastern Bahamas. There could be some heavy rain and some some strong
01:06indications that there's gonna be some extra moisture here and heavy
01:09torrential downpours. And if that organizes enough, we might see an early
01:12season storm. Now we are looking at an above average season, and that's not a
01:16surprise here. Our long range team is forecasting a 10 to 15% of 30 named
01:22storms. That would tie the record from 2020 if we see 30 names for so 10 to 15%
01:27chance that we actually tie the record. But overall, we are expecting between
01:31four and seven major hurricanes. That's above average. We average about three
01:35major hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin, and we are looking at a greater
01:39likelihood of impacts near the Texas coast of Florida, Panhandle, South
01:42Florida and the Carolinas. And we'll be watching again. We're expecting 20 to
01:4725 named storms. Last year we had 19 and we're expecting 4 to 6 direct U. S.
01:52Impacts.