El Niño has been hitting the snooze button on Atlantic hurricane season for weeks, largely preventing the basin from waking up and churning up storms, but at least one potential tropical troublemaker has a chance to shake the season out of its slumber.
The National Hurricane Center is outlooking an area in the tropical Atlantic that has about a 70% or “high” chance of becoming at least a tropical depression late this week. There’s also another area in the northern Atlantic that has a much lower chance to develop, and only in the next day or two.
The next tropical storm that forms anywhere in the basin will be named Cristobal.
Mid-August is typically when the tropics enters its busiest stretch, but any upcoming contenders for tropical development are going to be fighting an uphill battle to form and stay alive against El Niño’s influence.
The main challenge these systems face is El Niño’s abundant storm-killing wind shear. It’s a force that’s more likely to stick around as El Niño grows into a potentially record-breaking Super El Niño in the coming months.
