June is known for brewing messy storms near Florida

FPREN | By Irene Sans

In June we officially welcome the start of the Atlantic hurricane season.

Tropical storms can develop if we have certain ingredients and dynamics in the atmosphere. First, water temperatures need to be at least 80°F to provide enough water vapor for storms to get started. Once we have a cluster of storms, we need them to organize. As the storms become better organized, we need wind shear, the change of wind direction with height, to stay relatively low. When the wind stays low, the structure of a tropical system can further develop.

Although a storm may develop anywhere over water as long as these conditions are present, historically, storms have formed more in some areas than others.

June is known for messy storms that affect Florida

June is known for bringing ¨sheared¨ systems to the Southeast, especially impacting Florida. More storms developed in June in the Gulf of Mexico and the far western Atlantic, by Florida and the Carolinas. The Gulf area is where frontal systems usually leave remnants of their energy. This energy stays back, brewing for a sufficient time to acquire tropical or some tropical characteristics. These systems often remain as tropical storms or the lower range of the hurricane scale. Nonetheless, these tend to be big rainmakers.

In recent years, we’ve had Debby in 2012, Andrea in 2013, and Collin in 2016, all of which have brought torrential rains to parts of Florida and/or the Southeast. The systems’ lack of organization and strong upper-level winds shift all their convection to the east of the center, affecting Florida or the Southeast as the storm moves from west to east.

Similar conditions occur across the far western Atlantic near Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. As we saw earlier this week, a lingering front developed a weak low-pressure system that crossed Florida. This system stayed off the coast of Florida and Georgia and tried to develop. The system did not develop and continued to push east and stay over water.

Nonetheless, there have been instances where the system has intensified and slammed the Southeast Atlantic coast. These systems also tend to be big rainmakers rather than windmakers.

As the Atlantic hurricane season progresses, the typical formation areas expand over the Caribbean during July and then farther away toward the coast of Africa as we approach the peak of the hurricane season in August and September. Coincidentally, this is also the time when we start to monitor those tropical waves that we can often watch for over a week as they travel west toward the Americas. From October to November, the areas that tend to have tropical systems develop shrink once again closer to the U.S., over the Western Caribbean, and then the Gulf.