In this week's Weather Wednesday, I talk about some scorching heat coming to New England (which will be followed by a strong cold front). I also talk next week's weather, which will look very different from this week. I also go into New England's ongoing hurricane drought and what will likely be the penultimate Resort Roundup of the season. Check it out!
Prefer to read about New England's hurricane drought? There's a written version below the video. You can also find a written article about New England's major warm up here.
Coming into this hurricane season, which officially starts tomorrow, New England has gone 31 years without a hurricane landfall. This is, by far, the second longest streak without a hurricane landfall in New England dating back to 1851, which is when the Atlantic Hurricane Database dates back to. The third longest streak is about half this, 16 years , which occurred from 1969-1985, that was Gerda in 69 and Gloria in 85. Of course Bob struck New England as a category 2 in 1991. Since then, there have been 7 tropical storm landfalls, but no hurricanes. The streak nearly ended in 2021. Henri was forecast to come in as a category 1, but it ended up coming in with winds of 60mph, category 1 hurricane winds start at 74mph, so it came in as a high end tropical storm. There’s no doubt New England is in a hurricane drought. It’s unlikely to end this year, I mean a hurricane to make landfall is unlikely any given year, but this year it’s even less likely due to El Nino conditions expected to develop in time for the peak of the season. El Nino conditions typically rip storms apart due to a high amount of shear. That has happened already, a storm off the southeast coast could have developed, but there was too much shear for it to do so. Of course, there’s never a 0 percent chance of a hurricane landfall in New England, but it is lower than usual this year. I realize I’m probably locking in a hurricane landfall by saying all this, but we’ll see. The longest hurricane drought ever in New England spanned 42 years, from 1896 to 1938. That timeframe saw much less overall activity in New England than the current drought we’re in, 1991 to present. Only four low end tropical storms made landfall in that 42 years as opposed to 7 landfalls in 31 years in the current drought. Only two systems are classified as havig a high impact from 1896-1938 whereas 8 systems have had a high impact since 1991, including an extreme impact in Irene in 2011, which did not actually make landfall in New England, interestingly. The shortest time between landfalls is just 11 days, during the dreadful 1954 season, which saw category 3 Carol in late August followed by category 2 Edna less than two weeks later make landfall in New England.
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