The traditional view of the North Atlantic Hurricane season is that it starts on June 1 and runs through the end of October. While it is true that the vast majority of hurricanes in this part of the world are born and die during this period, there have been a number of exceptions. For example, Hurricane Alex just last year formed near the Bahamas in January and moved north, passed by Bermuda before turning east and then south and finally turned north and went right through the heart of the Azores before dying out just south of Greenland. Wow!

Last year was predicted to be slightly above average year for hurricanes with all of them predicted to fall to the north of the West Indies. As it turned out, there were 7 hurricanes, 8 tropical storms and 1 tropical depression (pretty much as predicted). I will post a graph that shows the dates of these tropical disturbances and their strengths above this post. I am posting to this blog a photo that shows the tracks of these disturbances. As you can see, the prediction was mostly correct, however, Hurricane Mathew was the exception as it roared just to the north of Grenada as a tropical storm and then marched into the Caribbean as a hurricane. It strengthened briefly to a Category 5 just before it turned north, when it eased just a bit but stayed a Category 4 as it passed between Cuba and Haiti and then blew by the east coast of the Southeastern US.

Please note that seven of these topical disturbances passed right over the route we need to take to sail to the Azores. This is the main reason we have decided that if we cannot leave before the end of this month, we will give up on our dream of sailing to the Med and return to Grenada for the rest of the hurricane season.

I offer this information not only because it is the reason we would abandoned our dream of sailing over to the Med but also because today is the first day during this hurricane season that a strong tropical wave has formed off the coast of Africa and is heading toward the Caribbean. As I explained last year at this time, tropical waves are what spawn most of the tropical disturbances which end up being tropical depressions, tropical storms and then hurricanes. Right now, NOAA is predicting that there is only a 20% chance that this tropical wave may form a hurricane during the next 5 days. As you will be able to see from the photo that I am posting above this blog, its projected path is westerly and is running along a line that is well to the south of what is normal. I would guess as it moves west, it will begin turning to the NW but at this point in time, NOAA is not predicting that. Time will tell.

The tendency for earlier hurricanes, larger hurricanes, and the possibility of them running well south of where they normally go, as well as reaching all the way up to the tip of Greenland, just underscores the impact of global warming on our weather. This explains the reason for the amazing amount of unstable upper atmospheric air that has cursed the North Atlantic as we have closely watched its weather patterns, waiting for a decent and safe weather window to start our passage to the Azores.