Next up--Hurricane Gordon

The 2024 hurricane season was predicted to be an active one. With some early activity—things went quiet for most of August. Then here in September Hurricane Francine showed up. Initially it was a tropical depression, then tropical storm and finally rapidly intensifying to become a category II hurricane that unleashed torrents of rain on Louisiana and other areas of the Gulf of Mexico.

 Now the long-term forecast is to have a series of storms crossing the Atlantic and headed for the United States and the Caribbean Islands.  The next named storm will be “Gordon” when it shows up. There is currently plenty of activity off the coast of Africa and one of those circling wind patters is sure to make it across the Atlantic to make landfall in the Western Hemisphere.

 The other cautionary tale is that there can be what I call “ pop-up storms” that rapidly intensify and gather strength in the Gulf of Mexico. So, it might not be a “transatlantic” storm that brings us Gordon.