We have reached the peak of hurricane season and of course the big story over the last two weeks has been Hurricane Dorian (picutred above via College of Dupage NEXLAB). The storm peaked as a Category 5 hurricane on September 1st when sustained winds reached 185 mph and the pressure fell to 910 millibars. Unfortunately, Dorian caused catastrophic damage in the northern Bahamas with many fatalities. The storm weakened as it moved away from the Bahamas, but still caused major impacts from the east coast of Florida to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. In total, the early estimates have Dorian incurring over 7 billion in damage.
Meanwhile, we had a short-lived tropical storm named Fernand that made landfall in northern Mexico on September 4th and dropped excessive amounts of rain. Elsewhere, Tropical Storm Gabrielle continues to meander over the northern Atlantic, but is expected to dissipate by midweek.
Looking ahead, the National Hurricane Center is watching a few areas of interest between Africa and the Caribbean for potential tropical development. Again, this is prime time for the tropics, so it’s likely that we have another named storm to track by the middle of September. The next name on the list is Humberto followed by Imelda.
So far this season, we have had seven named storms, two of which became hurricanes including the one major (Category 3 and higher) which was Dorian. The hurricane season ends on November 30th.
