A quiet stretch in sight for the tropics

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After a busy stretch of tracking Hurricane Beryl over the last week and a half, the tropics are slowing down. At least for now! And we’ll certainly take it after what has been a historic stretch for the tropical Atlantic.

Looking ahead over the next week, no tropical development is expected across the Atlantic basin. The first big factor is the subtropical high remaining strong over the next week.

The other main factor is Saharan dust blanketing the Atlantic, along with parts of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean.

It’s the time of year we typically see this dry air drifting across from the coast of Africa. This Saharan air layer is about 50% drier than the moist tropical air that feed storms over the Atlantic.

That is why tropical development is typically not in the Atlantic this early in the hurricane season. July hurricane are most likely to form in the Gulf, western Caribbean Sea and western Atlantic.

Speaking of – that’s one record Hurricane Beryl broke. The storm developed farther east than any June hurricane since records began. Beryl continued to rewrite record books becoming the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record.

Break from tropical activity as remnants of Beryl head towards Ohio valley

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Clean up and power restoration in Texas will be the story for the next few days as what is left of Beryl head up the Mississippi valley. As bad as Beryl was, it could have been a lot worse. The storm did not really start intensifying until it was on the Texas coast. If the intensification process started sooner, then the impacts to Texas would have been even more significant. July is typically one of the quieter months of the hurricane season, and it looks like we will have an extended break from any tropical development as a plume of Saharan dust moves across the tropical Atlantic. Tropics usually become much more active by mid to late August.