Labor Day weekend is typically one of the most hurricane-prone times in the Atlantic as we approach the midpoint of hurricane season on September 10th. But after an early-season burst of activity, including the earliest-ever Cat 5 in the Atlantic (Beryl, July 2), the tropics will start the Labor Day weekend unusually quiet, with no active storms as of Friday. However, Francine, the sixth named storm of the season, has the potential to form in the Caribbean shortly after Labor Day. A reconnaissance flight is tentatively scheduled for Sunday, September 1.
The precursor to a potential Francine may be a tropical disturbance occurring Friday in the tropical mid-Atlantic, along the coast of Africa and the Lesser Antilles. Satellite loops Friday showed the disturbance was disorganized, with a small amount of strong thunderstorm activity and not much rotation. Conditions were favorable for development, with wind shear of 10-15 knots, a fairly humid atmosphere and near-record sea temperatures of about 29 degrees Celsius (84°F). However, this disturbance is embedded in a large band of storms across the eastern Atlantic called the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), and will need to detach and consolidate from the ITCZ before development can actually begin.
Over the next week, the disturbance will move west-northwest at about 15 mph and move across the Lesser Antilles on Monday and Tuesday. The longer-range track is uncertain, with most GFS model team members predicting a more northwesterly track threatening Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic; the European model cluster (as well as the GFS model operated by 12Z) favors As it continues to move westward, the disturbance will move into the central Caribbean near Jamaica on Thursday.
The fracas was met with little enthusiasm for developments in Friday's run of GFS and European modeling groups 0Z, 6Z and 12Z, with less than half of their members showing development. In the Tropical Weather Outlook released at 2 p.m. ET on Friday, August 30, the National Hurricane Center forecasts a 40% chance of hurricane development in the western tropical Atlantic over the next seven days, and a 40% chance of hurricane development over the next two days. The possibility is close to zero. The 2-day and 7-day chances of development of another disturbance off the coast of Africa are 0% and 20% respectively. The second disturbance is expected to move more west-northwestward and is unlikely to pose a threat to the Caribbean Islands.
The third area of interest is the Northwest Gulf, where a weak disturbance and associated trough is expected to develop near or near the U.S. Gulf Coast over the next few days. The tropical outlook at 2 PM EDT on Friday increases the 2-day and 7-day chances of this system developing to 10% and 20%, respectively. Regardless of whether it becomes a tropical cyclone, the system will produce a period of severe showers and thunderstorms on and near the Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi coastlines, particularly from around Houston to New Orleans. Widespread rainfall of 2 to 5 inches will occur over the holiday weekend, with localized amounts of 10 inches or more expected.
Labor Day weekend has few unnamed storms
It’s been two decades since Eye of the Storm was launched under the name Dr. Storm. In 2005, according to Jeff Masters on Weather Underground's Wunderblog, only 3 of the 20 Labor Day weekends (Friday-Sunday) had absolutely no named storms that reached at least tropical storm intensity that weekend, as shown in the table below Show. Of course, this list is a rough measure of what actually happens. Some of these named storms recurred harmlessly across the Atlantic over the Labor Day weekend. In other cases, disturbances or tropical depressions that quickly became named storms have been tracked, such as 2006's Hurricane Florence, which was derailed early Tuesday, September 5, two days after being named a tropical depression. name. There are also cases where high-impact hurricanes are weakening, such as 2012's Hurricane Isaac, which still spawned tornadoes in the United States while moving farther north as a tropical depression and farther away. It’s Labor Day weekend in 2005, and New Orleans is still reeling from the horrific flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina.
This year's Labor Day weekend has seen a long pause in the Atlantic since Hurricane Ernesto receded on August 20. In fact, as hurricane expert Michael Lowry points out, an Atlantic tropical or subtropical system has occurred at least once a year during the two-week period between August 20 and September 3 since 1956. One of the longest interruptions was in 2013, when there were no active tropical cyclones in the Atlantic from August 26 to September 4.
Here are the Atlantic storms that have existed as tropical storms or hurricanes since 2005, including peak lifetime intensity, during the 3 days of Labor Day weekend (Friday night through Monday night, midnight EDT) (Compiled with help from Wikipedia's excellent annual summary and Atlantic hurricane season timeline)
- 2005 (9/3-9/5): Maria(C3), Nate(C1)
- 2006 (9/2-9/4): without any
- 2007 (9/1-9/3): Felix(C5)
- 2008 (9/6-9/8): Hannah (C1), Ike (C4)
- 2009 (9/5-9/7): without any
- 2010 (9/4-9/6): Earl(C4), Hermine(TS)
- 2011 (9/3-9/5): Katia (C4), unnamed (TS), Lee (TS)
- 2012 (9/1-9/3): Kirk(C2), Leslie(C1), Michael(C3)
- 2013 (8/31-9/2): without any
- 2014 (8/30-9/1): Dolly(TS)
- 2015 (9/5-9/7): Fred (C1), Grace (TS)
- 2016 (9/3-9/5): Hermine(C1)
- 2017 (9/2-9/4): Irma(C5)
- 2018 (9/1-9/3): Florence (C4), Gordon (TS)
- 2019 (8/31-9/2): Dorian (C5)
- 2020 (9/5-9/7): Paulette (C2)
- 2021 (April 9 to June 9): Larry (C3)
- 2022 (9/3-9/5): Danielle (C1), Earl (C2)
- 2023 (9/2-9/4): Katia (TS), Gert (TS)
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