Happy Monday and welcome to another edition of Beyond The Forecast!
It’s been an incredibly quiet stretch in the tropical Atlantic, with just one named storm forming in the last month: Wanda, which lost its tropical characteristics yesterday per the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
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Wanda was the 21st named storm in the Atlantic basin this season; therefore, we have exhausted all of the names on this year’s list. Let’s put a pin in that topic for a second.
With less than a month to go in hurricane season, we can start to go into recap mode and compare 2021 to previous hurricane seasons.
We were coming off one of the most active hurricane seasons on record in 2020, so it was nice to see a downtick in activity this year. 2021 compares pretty favorably to 2018 and 2019 in terms of number of storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes.
At the moment, there is only one area of interest for NHC in the Atlantic. As of 1 p.m. Monday, the non-tropical low pressure system is located about 400 miles east of Cape Hatteras, NC. The system is expected to move east-northeastward over the next few days and has a 10-percent chance of tropical development.
If this storm can beat the odds and get a name, NHC would go to a supplemental hurricane name list for the very first time! Remember, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) decided to retire the use of the Greek alphabet to name storms after 2020.
The first name on this supplemental list is ‘Adria.’
We’ll let you know if that current disturbance or any other system is able to get a name before the end of the season on November 30.
Switching gears to your local forecast, temperatures are on the rise the first few days of this week. Chris Michaels has a look at how close we are to record highs in our daily weather article.
You can always get specific forecast details for your zone, whether it’s the Roanoke Valley, Lynchburg area, the New River Valley or elsewhere around Southwest and Central Virginia, anytime at WSLS.com/weather. Know your zone!
In case you missed it, we’re posting great weather and science content on WSLS.com. Here are a few links from the past week to check out:
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-- Justin McKee