RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — With the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season kicking off in a little more than two weeks, the National Hurricane Center has begun issuing tropical outlooks.
Tropical outlooks are detailed daily reports on potential disturbances in the Atlantic basin, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico. All is quiet right now.
This year, the National Hurricane Center will be extending the outlooks from five days to seven days, with both two-day and seven-day formation probabilities provided.
Also, disturbances that are not named and instead given an identification number will be added to the geographic headers within the body of the Tropical Weather Outlook text product, when appropriate.
According to the NHC, “Invest identification numbers are a way to distinguish areas of disturbed weather that have the potential for tropical cyclone formation. The invest identification numbers are composed of 4 characters: a 2-letter basin identifier (e.g., AL), and a 2-digit number that begins with a 9 (e.g., 90,91,92, etc).”
Did you know that we have already had our first tropical system of the season? A sub-tropical storm formed off the East Coast in January. The storm was visible on satellite on Jan. 15 and 16, a couple of hundred miles off the Mid-Atlantic coast, but at the time the NHC did not believe it had tropical or subtropical characteristics. Forecasters later found it, in fact, did.
The system did not get a name even though it is the first tropical system of 2023 in the Atlantic basin. The first named storm in 2023 will be Arlene.
The Atlantic hurricane season officially runs from June 1 through Nov. 30.
