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Atlantic hurricanes

Seasonal outlooks are built from large-scale climate signals — sea surface temperatures across the tropical Atlantic, the presence or absence of an El Niño or La Niña pattern in the Pacific, and prevailing wind shear conditions — that influence how favourable the ocean and atmosphere are for storm formation over an entire season. These signals are genuinely informative about the aggregate energy available for storm development. They say almost nothing about where any individual storm will make landfall, because landfall location is determined by short-range atmospheric steering patterns that are not predictable months in advance.

  • Warmer than average sea surface temperatures in the main development region generally support more storm formation and higher potential intensity.
  • The presence of La Niña conditions tends to reduce wind shear over the Atlantic, removing a factor that would otherwise disrupt storm organisation.
  • Saharan dust outbreaks can suppress early-season activity by drying the atmosphere over the tropical Atlantic, an effect that is more predictable week to week than season to season.
  • None of these factors determine landfall location, intensity at landfall, or timing — only the general favourability of conditions for storms to form somewhere in the basin.

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