What To Expect From Hurricane Season In July

A​tlantic hurricane season activity in July is usually still on a slow uptick, but as we saw in June with three named storms forming in the month, there can be exceptions that defy the average.

J​uly has accounted for 7% of the Atlantic's tropical storms since 1851. That pales in comparison to the percentage of named storms that have formed in the busiest months of hurricane season: August (22%), September (35%) and October (21%), according to data from NOAA's Hurricane Research Division. Put another way, about one named storm has formed in July each year, on average.

O​ne July hurricane is typical roughly every three years. Sixty-three of the 145 storms that have formed in July since 1851 intensified into hurricanes. Category 3 or stronger hurricanes in July are even more rare with just nine of those in the historical record.

A​ subtle shift east in typical formation areas occurs in July. Formation areas spread eastward to include more of the Atlantic Ocean to the east of the Lesser Antilles and the eastern Caribbean.

Tropical waves, one of the seeds for tropical storm development, become a bit better defined in July. That's one reason we begin to look farther east in the second month of hurricane season.

Of course, June of this year already delivered the first storms of the season that were located east of the Lesser Antilles, but Bret and Cindy were extremely rare occurrences for the month in that region.

T​wo named storms formed last July. Short-lived Tropical Storm Colin developed on the first day of the month in 2022 and brought minimal impacts to the South Carolina coast. Bonnie also formed on the month's first day in the Caribbean and then hit Nicaragua as a tropical storm less than 24 hours later.

July's record for named storms was recently tied. The hyperactive 2020 hurricane season had five storms form in July: Edouard, Fay, Gonzalo, Hanna and Isaias. That tied 2005 for the most storms in the month since 1950.

O​n the opposite side of the spectrum, no named storms roamed the Atlantic waters at any point in July as recently as 2016.

A​ Category 5 hurricane formed in July nearly 20 years ago. Emily in 2005 is the only July hurricane to reach the highest rating of Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

Emily's stint as a Category 5 was a brief one, lasting only about six hours when it was centered just southwest of Jamaica late July 16 into early July 17, 2005. The hurricane eventually made landfall in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula as a Category 4.

Chris Dolce has been a senior meteorologist with weather.com for over 10 years after beginning his career with The Weather Channel in the early 2000s.

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