Tropical update: Quiet tropics continue... this week

While the Eastern Pacific continues with a parade of robust tropical waves, luckily all moving west, away from land, the Atlantic Basin remains fairly quiet. This is bound to change in the coming weeks when the pattern activates and flips.

For the last two weeks, the Tropical Atlantic has kept mum. This is all due to higher wind shear present and spots of dry dust air suppressing tropical development. Starting this next week you will hear lots of noise about tropical African waves. These are the waves that emerge from the continent and take their sweet time traveling west or northwest.

As we have mentioned before, on average, a tropical wave can take over 10 days to make it to the Americas. And that is IF ones make it. There is a large guiding system, known as the Bermuda High, that often steers systems to the open northern Atlantic, keeping storms away from land.

We hope this is the case in the coming historically busiest weeks of the hurricane season which start in mid-August and run through early October. But because the Bermuda High is not always sitting all the way east, closer to Europe, and tropical waves could move more south and enter the Caribbean, it is best to stay prepared. This weekend you should review your hurricane plans if you haven't done so already.