And while we haven't had any hurricanes yet, the season has been active, as predicted. According to Gordon, while there have been an above average number of named storms, hurricanes have been relatively normal.
Ronald Gordon, Chief Meteorologist
"Certainly, it has been very active in terms of the number of name storms, that is, storms reaching tropical storms, trend and more. We have seen that I think it's at least 20 or 21 neem storms, that should be 20."
"And that includes an out of seasons storm that formed in January that wasn't named, but reach tropical storm strength. So certainly, in terms of the number of name storms, the season has been well beyond average, the average is for there to be 14."
"And like I said, we are around 20 so far. However, when you look at the number of hurricanes, we are near normal. I think we have just reached seven hurricanes with the last one that formed, which was Tammy."
"So we are at seven hurricanes and we are at three major hurricanes, which also is at the exact value that we describe as normal. So the number of name storms indeed has been much more than normal, but the number of hurricanes has not been more than normal."
"One of the things that we were looking at at the start of the season was of course the El Nino. And with El Nino, you tend to have stronger than normal wind shear that typically disrupts tropical systems."
"In the case of this year, we did have the wind shear, but to counter that wind shear, we had warmer than normal temperatures. In fact, I would say unprecedentedly warmer than normal sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic basin."
"And so what you had there was that you have the fuel or the energy needed for these systems to develop, but then for the most part, those systems did not intensified to hurricane strength because then you had the wind shear that would disrupt them from farthest strengthening."
"So it's basically two forces fighting each other. And that's what we have seen so far for this particular hurricane season."
