00:00All right, joining me right now is ACU and the lead hurricane expert, Alex DaSilva here.
00:06And Alex, we're going to talk about the upcoming hurricane season.
00:10And one of the things that has become really widespread knowledge is how strong the El Nino is expected to
00:19be this year.
00:20And explain it to our viewers.
00:23Yeah, El Nino is expected to come on here over the next month or so.
00:26And when we're talking about El Nino, we're talking about an area well out into the Pacific Ocean, southeast of
00:32Hawaii.
00:33Basically, you can see this boxed area here.
00:35This is the El Nino or La Nina region.
00:38In this case, it's very warm.
00:40You can see all those oranges and reds in this box.
00:42So it's warmer than average.
00:44So when it's warmer than average in this box, we call that an El Nino.
00:48And essentially what that does for the Atlantic Basin is the research is really, really strongly correlated to a less
00:55active season overall in the Atlantic Basin during those El Nino years.
01:00And the reason for that is we typically see more hostile winds coming through the basin.
01:04You showed the wind shear product earlier.
01:07Lots of wind shear across the basin.
01:08That is typical of an El Nino year.
01:11And usually that keeps the numbers down a little bit.
01:14That does not mean we won't see impactful storms, but usually the numbers are a little lower.
01:19For the third or fourth straight year in a row, though, the one thing that counterdicts or may counteract it
01:26to some extent,
01:29the longer, the more wind shear and less activity compared to historical average,
01:33is that water temperatures, once again, Alex, are running above historical average.
01:38We'll take a look at that in a second.
01:39But I do want to get into the forecast that you issued quite some time ago.
01:43Yeah, exactly.
01:44Here's the forecast.
01:45Again, we issued this well back in March.
01:4711 to 16 name storms, 4 to 7 hurricanes, 2 to 4 majors.
01:50Now, again, a lot of this is going to be determined on how strong El Nino gets throughout the hurricane
01:55season.
01:56You may have heard people talking about the potential of a super El Nino by the end of the hurricane
02:00season.
02:01That is certainly possible, and the chances of that are rising.
02:04If that were to occur, we would likely be on the lower end of the numbers.
02:08However, if El Nino comes on and maybe it stays a little bit weaker, that's how we could potentially get
02:13to the higher end of the numbers.
02:15The one thing that is somewhat dangerous, and I alluded before, the current water temperatures in the Atlantic Basin.
02:21Again, this is the anomaly or the water temperatures compared to the historical average this time of the year.
02:28Yeah, and especially close to the United States.
02:30That's really the concern.
02:32Out over the Atlantic, you can see some splotches of blue.
02:34So even in portions of the main development region way out near Africa, it's actually cooler than average for this
02:39time of the year.
02:39But you look closer to the U.S., in the Gulf, off the southeast coast, western Caribbean, it is warmer
02:45than average for this time of the year.
02:46And we expect it to be that way throughout the hurricane season.
02:49So if anything were to form in that area or if something is able to find that Goldilocks zone, essentially,
02:55where that wind shear dips, we could see something rapidly intensify.
02:59So that's why it's very important to follow the AccuWeather forecast.
03:02What's interesting is we were talking about El Nino, but this is something you alerted to me last year.
03:08There's actually what we call an Atlantic Nino or Nino off the west coast of Africa.
03:15Why is this important?
03:16Yeah, this is a little bit less talked about area, but this is the area we're talking about off the
03:21west coast of Africa, right along the equator.
03:23And this is the Atlantic Nino slash Nino region.
03:26Now, this actually has the opposite impact on the Atlantic Basin compared to the Pacific one that we just talked
03:33about.
03:33If the water temperatures in this area, in this boxed region, essentially, or this area with the oval around it,
03:39if they're warmer than average,
03:41that can actually enhance tropical development in the main development region of the Atlantic.
03:46And if these waters are cooler, that can actually lead to less activity.
03:49The last two years, if you remember, we saw lulls in the middle of the tropical season, right when we're
03:55expecting the peak of the season to be.
03:57I think a lot of that actually had to do with the fact that this area near Africa rapidly cooled
04:02the last two years during the heart of the season.
04:04When we go back to that graphic right now, Alex, it appears though temperatures are slightly above historical average overall.
04:11Yeah, overall they are.
04:12I would call this neutral to slightly Atlantic Nino right now, but this area can change throughout the season.
04:19So it's something we're going to have to watch very carefully as we go over the next couple of months.
04:24AccuWeather lead hurricane expert Alex DaSilva breaking it down.
04:27Thanks for joining us here on AccuWeather Early.
