Early Season Storms Don't Mean Active/Above Normal Season

After having two named storms (Bret/Cindy) going on at the same time out in the Atlantic, we are down to one (Cindy) barely hanging on.  With a strengthening El Nino building in the Pacific, all forecasters knew increasing wind shear would be a factor this hurricane season.  That has been the case with these last two storms as both have weakened under the westerly shear.

What's left of Bret is a large cluster of showers moving into central America as an open wave.  Cindy still has a burst of storms to the Northeast of her center (yellow arrow), but NHC is about to downgrade her to a Tropical Depression.  While doing some research on early season storms, I saw on TWC that the last time that happened was 1968.  A look at what happened the rest of that season found only 6 more names for a total of 9, well below the long term average.  I also found this little nugget regarding other season with early June storms.   It hasn't happened too often.

So in modern history (1850-2023), there have only been 5 seasons with 3 named storms in June.  In 3 of those 4, the total number of names fell short of average/normal with 1936 being the exception.  So with an increasing El Nino, my thinking favors this year's total number will stop around 10-11, perhaps less.  In a year where heat is high, I'm counting on wind shear to be king.  We'll see.  One thing for sure, the Gulf has become quiet.  That trough that has lingered along our coast is gone.

So what else have we to talk about?  Nothing but the heat & lack of daily storms.

You can see the building heat as St. Louis is 95 & Little Rock 98.

This will easily be our hottest so far this Summer.  The lack of widespread rainfall is not only here but over most of the lower Mississippi & Ohio River basins.  This has the Carrollton gage down below 3 feet here.

 Rotating around the "ring of fire" pattern are small, but strong T-Storm clusters.  

It's a rare June day when there are no T-Storms in Louisiana with just a lone shower near Shell beach.  The result?  Everyone is in the mid to upper 90s.  Beware of the heat this week.  Stay tuned!