Next potential Atlantic hurricane to roll off the African coast this weekend

A storm is whirling in the Atlantic that just passed the Southeast offshore.

It will take a smack at mid-Atlantic and New England states this weekend as a high-wind-and-heavy-rain Nor’easter coastal storm, if not an extra-tropical cyclone — something similar to a tropical storm.

Federal forecasters were watching a storm that fell apart off Florida.

Super Typhoon Hagibis is racing toward landfall in Japan with winds stronger than 140 mph.

It’s powerful enough to be pushing large surf into the west coast of the United States more than 3,000 miles away.

So, no, this hurricane season hasn’t quieted down.

Nearly a fourth of the hurricanes that have formed in recent decades did so after Oct. 7, said Phil Klotzbach, leading scientist of the benchmark Tropical Meteorology Project.

But the season is shifting. Cooler air is moving off the Southeast, dropping the sea surface temperatures that would feed heat to hurricanes, said meteorologist Shea Gibson, with the forecasting company WeatherFlow.

“We’re now seeing a string of progressive mid-latitude storms moving across the nation,” said meteorologist Bob Henson, with the forecasting company Weather Underground. “As long as these continue, they will tend to keep any potential tropical threats away from the Southeast coast.”

What’s brewing

We’re keeping an eye on two systems to the northeast, but neither has high chances of developing into a cyclone, according to the National Hurricane Center’s five-day forecast.

Conditions: Winds continue to pull apart storms coming off Africa or push them north into open seas.

Computer models: Suggest the monsoon storm expected to come off Africa this weekend will drift into the open Atlantic. But that forecast is on the far end of the time range and not reliable.

Outlook: Sea surface temperatures are dropping below the 80-degree Fahrenheit mark traditionally considered the heat needed to fire up hurricanes. But storms have emerged in somewhat cooler seas. The Gulf of Mexico is still plenty warm enough to stir up a storm.

What we’re talking about If you’re heading for a hurricane shelter, your pet often can’t come with you.

Communities near Myrtle Beach and in the Pee Dee face collapse after being flooded by both Hurricane Matthew (2016) and Hurricane Florence (2019). Read our coverage at the attempts to recover — or retreat. Across the globe, Super Typhoon Hagibis intensified rapidly in the Pacific earlier this week, after a somewhat suppressed season in that basin. The storm gained 100 mph in speed in just 24 hours. (Capital Weather Gang)

Where October hurricanes strike

Storms are less likely to hit this month than during the late summer — but still, they come! A Post and Courier analysis of the National Hurricane Center’s HURDAT database reveals that October landfalls near Charleston aren’t as rare as you might think. Still, western Florida appears the most vulnerable. (Bryan Brussee/Staff)

This article was originally published on postandcourier