There are six months to hurricane season but as you're also aware, there's nothing even remotely equitable about the activity within them. After a super quiet June to start hurricane season this year, here's how far through hurricane season we really are at this point.
Record keeping for the Atlantic hurricane season began officially in 1851. This was done by taking a look at how many storms formed each month. Here's how far through hurricane season we typically are by July: 7.3% of all tropical storms and 4% of all hurricanes have occurred prior to July.
In other words, we still have well over 90% of hurricane season in front of us. July is the fourth most active month for tropical storm development and fifth most active for hurricane formation. So, what typically happens in July? We average .7 tropical storms & .3 hurricanes.
In essence, in the typical year, we only average one named tropical system in July. The 2017 hurricane season was 42% more active than normal. Now, if you're looking to compare this year to last, we've already had three named systems by the time we entered July. Another way of looking at it is that through the first month of hurricane season we had 67% less activity compared to the same time a year ago. Let's hope that's a trend. As a reminder here's what the forecasts called for this year.
According to Colorado State University, we'll have 14 named storms, NOAA says 13 and the Weather Channel is predicting 12. Of those storms CSU says 6 will become hurricanes, NOAA says 7, Weather Channel is at 5. Put them all together and we average 13 named storms and six hurricanes. This is slightly above the average season.
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