Tropical Storm Francine formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, the sixth named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season and the first in nearly a month.
On Monday morning, Francine was over 200 miles southeast of the mouth of the Rio Grande with maximum wind speeds of 50 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service. The storm is expected to become a hurricane before it reaches the northwestern coast of the Gulf of Mexico by the middle of the week, forecasters said.
A tropical storm is upgraded to a hurricane when maximum sustained winds reach 74 m.p.h.
This hurricane season was expected to be busy.
Tuesday marks the statistical peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. Forecasters had warned this spring that the season could be much more active than usual, with some saying they expected more than 20 named storms may form before it ends. But before Francine only five other storms had formed so far, and none in the last few weeks.
Alberto, the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, made landfall on the northeastern coast of Mexico as a tropical storm on June 20, unleashing heavy rain, flooding and gusty winds. At least four people died in events related to the storm.
Beryl formed a little over a week later, on June 28, and became the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record. It carved a path of destruction through the Caribbean before crossing into the Gulf of Mexico and hitting the Texas coast.
In July, Tropical Storm Chris formed just before making landfall in Mexico. Debby was the latest storm to make landfall, moving ashore on Aug. 5 in Florida, and then meandering around the southern United States with flooding rains for days. Ernesto followed shortly after, striking Bermuda, an island with experience weathering hurricanes, as a Category 1 hurricane on Aug. 18.
But the Atlantic went quiet after Ernesto. A quiet spell that significant has not been seen during this part of the season since 1968, according to Phil Klotzbach, a researcher of hurricane activity at Colorado State University.
Still, in August, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration continued its forecast of 17 to 24 named storms this year, an “above-normal” number and a prediction in line with more than a dozen forecasts earlier in the year from experts at universities, private companies and government agencies. Hurricane seasons produce 14 named storms on average from June 1 through Nov. 30.
The seasonal hurricane outlooks were notably aggressive because forecasters looking at the start of the season saw a combination of circumstances that didn’t exist in records dating back to the mid-1800s: record warm water temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean and the potential formation of the weather pattern known as La Niña.
La Niña occurs in the Pacific because of changing ocean temperatures, and it affects weather patterns globally. When it is strong, it typically provides a calm environment in the Atlantic; this allows storms to develop more easily and to strengthen without interference from wind patterns that might otherwise keep them from organizing.
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