Overall, the Tropics Remain Quiet

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Early Friday AM Update – 9/20.

The tropics remain unusually quiet, in a year when many of the experts predicted a very active hurricane season.

In the Eastern Pacific, there are no hurricanes, no tropical storms, just one area of disturbed weather well off the Mexican coast. It has a 30% chance of developing into a tropical storm (less than a one in three chance). Even if it did develop, it's unlikely that it would affect any land areas.

The graphic above shows the average number of hurricanes and tropical storms from May through December. The peak of the Atlantic hurricane season was Sept. 10. Now we're on the downhill, with few tropical storms on average as we close out September and head into October..

Here's Southern U.S. combined satellite and radar.

New Orleans LA radar

Here's the Eastern Pacific Tropical Discussion in English in Spanish .

The map above is the Central Pacific Ocean (with Hawaii in the middle of the map). There are no tropical depressions, tropical storms or hurricanes in the Central Pacific and none are expected in the next 7-10 days.

Here's a summary of tropical storm and hurricane activity in the eastern Pacific so far this year

Here's a satellite view of the western Pacific and Indian Oceans. There is one minimal tropical storm storm named "Pulasan". The storm is west of Japan, north of Japan. It will likely diminish to just a tropical depression as it passes through the south coastal area of Korea and then move into China north of Shanghai. It'll produce some significant showers, but no serious damage is expected.

There's another depression now called 90W that is being monitored.

Here's the projected path of "Pulasan.

Regarding the lack of hurricane activity so far this year compared to the high number of hurricanes forecast for this summer/fall, Dr. Ryan Maui said:

"This is by far one of the most spectacular model forecasting busts ever for tropical cyclone genesis east of the Lesser Antilles. I am not complaining about the outcome, but our inability to forecast tropical cyclogenesis out of the Atlantic monsoon trough is quite concerning. We have much work to do to understand what/why went wrong."

Here's the latest ACE Index, a measure of the number and strength of tropical storms and hurricanes. In the North Atlantic Sector, we have a current ACE Index of 61.0. That compares to an average ACE-to-date of 77.4. So, that's 79% of average ACE-to-date. Of that 61.0 ACE, 35.1 of that came from long-lived hurricane . Two other named storms, were much smaller and short-lived and then we had , which was a Category 1 storm and that gave 84 mph winds to the island of Bermuda. added to the Atlantic ACE. Tropical Storm "Gordon" reached tropical storm status for 2 days in the mid-Atlantic. It did not affect land areas.

All other global sectors have well below ACE-to-date figures. It was the quietest start ever for the eastern Pacific. The ACE in the eastern Pacific sector is currently at just 54.0. Average-to-date ACE for this sector is 100.7, so that's still just 54% of average ACE-to-date.

The Western Pacific Ocean Sector has an ACE-to-date of 94.4, compared to an average ACE-to-date of 171.8. This is just 55% of average ACE-to-date.

The North Indian Ocean has an ACE-to-date of 3.3, again well below the average ACE-to-date of 9.6.

If you take the entire globe, you get a current ACE-to-date of 212.7. That compares to an average ACE-to-date of 360.7 and that's just 59% of average ACE-to-date.

Keep coming back to Bill's Blog for tropical updates.