Hurricane season is not over: hot seas could spell trouble for the U.S.

Unfortunately, Milton may just have been the warning. The 2024 hurricane season is not over, and the tropical basin is being heavily monitored for additional tropical storm formation over the next few days and weeks.

According to AccuWeather, an area of showers and thunderstorms are “expected to move into the western Caribbean late in the week could lead to another tropical storm”, with Florida at risk of being hit again.

Meteorologist Mike Youman commented that “interests from Central America through the western Caribbean and the Gulf Coast of the U.S. should closely monitor this potential for development”.

The increase in water temperatures, heavily influenced by man-made climate change, is the main cause of the rise in hurricane activity in this part of the world. Hurricanes Beryl, Debby and Helene were all influenced by this shift, as were Milton and Francine, all of which built up strong winds that impacted the United States.

AccuWeather Hurricane expert Alex DaSilva said that there are various possibilities as to what may happen with the increased rain we’ve seen in the Caribbean over the past few days, given that any hurricane development would take around a week to fully occur: “one possibility would take the system westward into Central America and southern Mexico, and the other is, unfortunately, toward Florida. It is typically very difficult for a tropical system to continue toward the northwest and into Texas this late in the season due to prevailing westerly breezes in that area.”

Could we see a Category 5 hurricane this year?

As with all hurricanes, their strength depends on how they move and the amount of time they have over the water to build up before making landfallFor example, a hurricane that has a trajectory that tends towards the west will hit Central America and not have much time over the water to gather force, while one that spins north into the gulf would see more time over the water before making landfall in the US, giving it more time to speed up and become stronger.

Hurricane power all depends on Mother Nature and how the storm moves before spinning over the limit into what science classes as a hurricane.

As for what might happen in 2024, another close eye is being kept on the west of the Cabo Verde Islands off the western coast of Africa, where abnormal showers and thunderstorms have been erupting. However, for now, any storm is still away from becoming a hurricane and heading towards the States via the Caribbean.