HURRICANE HQ: The Key Ingredients Driving the Atlantic Hurricane Season

Added: 2026-05-21

[00:00:01]Fox Weather is your hurricane HQ. The countdown to the Atlantic Basin hurricane season is well underway. It starts just a week from Monday at this point. Noah releasing its 2026 Atlantic forecast tomorrow. Be on the lookout for that right here on Fox Weather.

[00:00:19]Climatologically, first name storm in the Atlantic doesn't form until around June the 20th. the first hurricane. Uh that's usually sometime around August 11th. So Jane, we're crossing the event horizon.

[00:00:34]>> Hurricane season's pulling us in now and we're actually close enough that we can see some indications of what the very early part of the season might look like.

[00:00:42]>> Up to this point, it's really just been what we know, right? That that what could ultimately play out. But I think this is now getting into the important time frame of okay, what does the atmosphere do? where where are high pressureures located? Do we have any storms, any dips in the jetream all right would be important, right? So when we consider, you know, what's coming in the big picture, opening up the first week of June, notable that we have that strengthening Bermuda high across the Atlantic.

[00:01:10]>> Yeah. And you look at that flow of moisture coming out of the warm water of the Caribbean, also out of the southern Gulf. When you get a setup like this with a stalled boundary, >> you can't leave a boundary over warm water for too long, Jane.

[00:01:24]>> Especially expect nothing to happen.

[00:01:25]especially once we turn the page into hurricane season, right? Um, and so I think that is always where we talk about these homegrown systems, something that spins up quickly and often times can be big rain makers, right? We we increase the flood threat. Maybe the intensity isn't all there, but they're still quite disruptive, >> right? Uh, oftentimes we call it rain with a name, right? Some some sloppy, messy, poorly organized system. But oddly, I mean, that was what Florida didn't get either at the beginning or the end of last season, set them up in the awful drought. So, this wouldn't be a bad thing, >> right? When you consider the the pattern setting up, although when we look into that first week of June, we know that high pressure will be there. We kind of have these the subtropical jets a little wier, a little disrupted, but the position of that is more hostile for the environment upstairs. So you wouldn't expect if anything that were to develop for it to be particularly strong, right?

[00:02:22]But it would maybe be messier, lopsided, and that rain would help to promote perhaps a little bit more in the way of drought relief.

[00:02:30]>> So these are typical June things, June swirls on either side of the Florida Peninsula, Gulf, or off the southeast.

[00:02:37]We don't pay as much of an attention when they're off the southeast because often times they ride that boundary and move out to sea. But yeah, the the climatology tells us and not like it's going to be some blockbuster thing, but sometimes you can get through an A, a B, a C storm early in the season. It could be subtropical with features of of >> and I've always say I always say beware of the the B name B name and the C name because early on in the alphabet, they tend to be the ones that sneak up and within like 12 hours you're suddenly like, wait a second, there's a name coming. Yeah. because it's this type of of scenario where you have a stalled boundary and all you need is just a little kick of spin over the Gulf Stream or right now over those warm waters in the Gulf of America.

[00:03:19]>> We're going to be talking with uh the chief meteorologist at Fox 13 in Tampa Bay a little bit later on, Paul Delegado. It'll be interesting to get his thoughts because typically which Florida could use this in a big way.

[00:03:31]We've talked a lot about that. There's some event, some storm that kicks off the rainy season and then shuts it down.

[00:03:38]Like at the end of it, a front comes through and it's just like h you feel the dry air, >> the change.

[00:03:43]>> I wonder if there could be something in this window. June, first week, second week, it's typically when the rainy season starts in earnest. If we got a little storm area, low pressure goes through, kind of gets things rolling. I wouldn't. I mean, considering that we've already got this this setup with plenty of moisture in place, it really just takes one. So, we'll we'll see how it plays out. But, it's definitely a reminder, you know, now's the time.

[00:04:09]Prepare. And if you haven't gone through that checklist, >> you you better do so.

[00:04:14]>> Yeah. Some of this already is backed up by the projections from the Climate Prediction Center. The thinking from the Euro 2 looks uh a little interesting long range. So, stay with Fox Weather.

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