This year’s hurricane season comes to a close as one of the busiest in decades.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said in a news release, this year was ranked fourth for the most named storms in a single year since 1950.
An average season has 14 named storms, this year saw 20 with seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes.
Hurricane Lee was one of the named storms making landfall in Nova Scotia, September 16.
NOAA says the active season was mostly due to record-warm Atlantic sea surface temperatures and a strong El Nino.
“The Atlantic basin produced the most named storms of any El Nino influenced year in the modern record,” said Matthew Rosencrans, lead hurricane forecaster at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center — a division of NOAA’s National Weather Service. “The record-warm ocean temperatures in the Atlantic provided a strong counterbalance to the traditional El Nino impacts.”
NOAA said their Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Weather Service, will issue its 2024 hurricane seasonal outlook in May 2024.
The hurricane season officially begins on June 1 and ends November 30.
