Atlantic's hurricane alley is so hot from El Niño it could send 2024's storm season into overdrive

News
By Ben Turner
published

Unusually high temperatures combined with the abatement of the El Niño southern oscillation could aid the formation of extreme hurricanes this year.

A photo of a hurricane in the North Atlantic taken from space.
A photo of a hurricane in the North Atlantic taken from space. (Image credit: Getty Images)

The Atlantic's "hurricane alley" is already experiencing summer temperatures, despite it only being February. And the unprecedented temperatures could be bad news for the upcoming storm season, researchers say.

Since March 2023, average sea surface temperatures around the world have hit record-shattering highs and are still climbing. This ominous ocean heating is being driven by accelerating global warming and the El Niño climate pattern.

"Since the 1980s the world has been experiencing an increased rate of warming. The warming rate is not just simply increasing from year to year though: What we see are phases of faster warming alternating with periods when warming is slower," Joel Hirschi, the associate head of marine systems modeling at the U.K. National Oceanography Centre, told Live Science. "The level of warming we saw in 2023 and now in 2024 is remarkable."

Average sea surface temperatures are now roughly 68.5 degrees Fahrenheit (20.3 degrees Celsius) across the North Atlantic, a full degree higher than the 1981-2011 average. This includes the Atlantic’s hurricane alley, a hurricane-forming belt of water that stretches from the west coast of Africa to Central America.  

"Unbelievable: the North Atlantic sea surface temperature is now 4.5 standard deviations above the recent 1991-2020 climatological mean," Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate in marine, atmospheric and earth sciences at the University of Miami, wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "That translates to a 1-in-284,000-year event. Yet here we are watching it unfold, one day at a time. This is deeply troubling."

Related: Big blob of hot water in Pacific may be making El Niño act weirdly

And this increase in sea temperatures could lead to more intense Atlantic hurricanes later in the year, when hurricane season is expected to start on June 1 and end on Nov. 30. 

NASA's Terra satellite captured this thermal (heat) image of Category 5 Hurricane Maria in 2017. Yellow and orange are the warm ocean waters, and blue and white are the hurricane’s tall, cool cloud tops.

NASA's Terra satellite captured this thermal (heat) image of Category 5 Hurricane Maria in 2017. (Image credit: NASA)

Hurricanes grow from a thin layer of ocean water that is evaporated by winds before rising to form storm clouds. Warmer waters give this system more energy, pushing this process into overdrive and enabling violent storms to rapidly take shape.

Scientists previously found that climate change has made extremely active Atlantic hurricane seasons much more likely than they were in the 1980s. This is because, while hotter oceans don't make hurricanes more frequent, they do make them stronger and faster-growing. 

Five storms have blown at an unprecedented 192 mph (309 km/h) or more this decade, leading scientists to propose a new "Category 6" strength to describe them.

However "warm ocean temperatures on their own are not a guarantee for an active season," Hirschi said. "In addition, the vertical wind shear in the subtropics needs to be weak." If the vertical wind shear — the change in wind speed with height — is too intense, the stormy clouds are blown apart and no hurricanes will form. 

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This is where El Niño could come into play. El Niño is a climate cycle where waters off the tropical eastern Pacific grow warmer than usual, affecting global weather patterns. It is linked with weaker trade winds around the equator, which raises average sea surface temperatures at the equator by at least 2.7 F (1.5 C).

The current El Niño developed quickly in July 2023 and is expected to last until June this year.

During El Niño, winds in the Atlantic are typically stronger and more stable than usual, acting as a brake on hurricane formation. But if the climate cycle follows predictions and dies down or is replaced by La Niña (its cooler counterpart), it could make for an unusually stormy summer.

"The equatorial Pacific is likely to switch to neutral or La Niña conditions during summer and autumn," Hirschi said. "If the anomalously warm Atlantic temperatures persist during that period, we would have all the ingredients for a very active hurricane season."

Ben Turner
Ben Turner
Staff Writer

Ben Turner is a U.K. based staff writer at Live Science. He covers physics and astronomy, among other topics like tech and climate change. He graduated from University College London with a degree in particle physics before training as a journalist. When he's not writing, Ben enjoys reading literature, playing the guitar and embarrassing himself with chess.

7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Dasho
    "That translates to a 1-in-284,000-year event. Yet here we are watching it unfold, one day at a time. This is deeply troubling."

    So if the earth is 4.5 billion years old and has had measurable "climate" for over three billion years, per NASA, why is it "troubling" that this is happening again? If it's happened over 12,000 times throughout history, it would seem relatively normal.

    I want to be clear, I am not a climate science denier or global warming denier etc. It's, of course, difficult to convey context or intent when writing like this. I am genuinely asking.
    Reply
  • helium1
    Dasho said:
    "That translates to a 1-in-284,000-year event. Yet here we are watching it unfold, one day at a time. This is deeply troubling."

    So if the earth is 4.5 billion years old and has had measurable "climate" for over three billion years, per NASA, why is it "troubling" that this is happening again? If it's happened over 12,000 times throughout history, it would seem relatively normal.

    I want to be clear, I am not a climate science denier or global warming denier etc. It's, of course, difficult to convey context or intent when writing like this. I am genuinely asking.
    Although such an event should not be considered unprecedented in the history of the Earth, it is unprecedented in the history of human civilization.
    Human beings are highly adaptable, BUT we have evolved to survive in a relatively narrow range of conditions.
    The conditions under which civilization has evolved to survive and thrive are narrower still.
    The changes that are forthcoming as a result of our evolving climate (influenced to a large degree by human activity which is unprecedented in scope, scale, and nature in the history of our Earth) are likely to pose significant challenges to the survival and stability of human civilization, in ways that we are struggling to understand and almost certainly unprepared for.

    It is also worth noting that saying this is statistically a 1 in 284000 year event is different than saying this is literally a 1 in 284000 year event.
    These conditions are becoming and are likely to become more common.
    The "1 in 284000" number is describing the statistical probability of finding a number 4 standard deviations off the average within the given data set. It's been a while since I took statistics in high school, so I'm sure someone else can explain that a little better.
    Hope that helps.
    Reply
  • Cyclonaut
    admin said:
    Unusually high temperatures combined with the abatement of the El Niño southern oscillation could aid the formation of extreme hurricanes this year.

    Atlantic's hurricane alley is so hot from El Niño it could send 2024's storm season into overdrive : Read more
    seems to be the same thing every year.. more doom and gloom predictions that very seldom come to fruition. want to impress me? tell me when (within a few days ) the next earthquake over 7.0 will be.
    Reply
  • George Washington
    People in the know say that the Pacific Ocean's Typhoon Alley is so cold from the drafts caused by El Nino that Hawaii COULD see icebergs forming in the next 10,000 years. I'm terrified of this prospect.:sneaky:
    Reply
  • bolide
    helium1 said:
    Although such an event should not be considered unprecedented in the history of the Earth, it is unprecedented in the history of human civilization.
    Human beings are highly adaptable, BUT we have evolved to survive in a relatively narrow range of conditions.
    The conditions under which civilization has evolved to survive and thrive are narrower still.
    The changes that are forthcoming as a result of our evolving climate (influenced to a large degree by human activity which is unprecedented in scope, scale, and nature in the history of our Earth) are likely to pose significant challenges to the survival and stability of human civilization, in ways that we are struggling to understand and almost certainly unprepared for.

    It is also worth noting that saying this is statistically a 1 in 284000 year event is different than saying this is literally a 1 in 284000 year event.
    These conditions are becoming and are likely to become more common.
    The "1 in 284000" number is describing the statistical probability of finding a number 4 standard deviations off the average within the given data set. It's been a while since I took statistics in high school, so I'm sure someone else can explain that a little better.
    Hope that helps.
    Another way to say this is, that assuming baseline (1991-2020) background conditions remained constant, this would be a 1-in-284,000-years event. But the fact that this seemingly very unlikely event is happening now, is strong evidence that those background conditions are rapidly changing.
    Reply
  • bolide
    Dasho said:
    "That translates to a 1-in-284,000-year event. Yet here we are watching it unfold, one day at a time. This is deeply troubling."

    So if the earth is 4.5 billion years old and has had measurable "climate" for over three billion years, per NASA, why is it "troubling" that this is happening again? If it's happened over 12,000 times throughout history, it would seem relatively normal.

    I want to be clear, I am not a climate science denier or global warming denier etc. It's, of course, difficult to convey context or intent when writing like this. I am genuinely asking.
    12,000 times over that period is as "normal" as once every 284,000 years. As long as the entire existence of homo sapiens. If the two numbers give different impressions, it's because we can hardly conceptualize a quantity like "3 billion," which your 12,000 comes from. Better to express it in terms that we have a better chance of relating to.
    Reply
  • bolide
    Cyclonaut said:
    seems to be the same thing every year.. more doom and gloom predictions that very seldom come to fruition. want to impress me? tell me when (within a few days ) the next earthquake over 7.0 will be.
    From the article: "Five storms have blown at an unprecedented 192 mph (309 km/h) or more this decade, leading scientists to propose a new "Category 6" strength to describe them." And these storms have caused unprecedented billions in property damage. Just ask the insurance companies.

    But we haven't learned how to predict earthquakes yet, so climate predictions are useless ...
    Reply