Hurricane Season Ramps Up Now — What To Know

The Atlantic hurricane season may start in June, but it's typical to have to wait a month or more for the season's first hurricane.

Three tropical storms have formed in the Atlantic Basin so far this season, but none of those became a hurricane.

We examined data from the mid-1960s – when full satellite coverage of the Atlantic Basin began – through 2024 to see how variable the date of the season's first hurricane has been. We also examined where those first hurricanes formed and whether early or late first hurricanes told us anything useful about the season as a whole.

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Here's what we found:

Usually in August or July: In 41 of 59 years since 1966, the first hurricane has formed in July or August.

Why the wait: Very early in the season, wind shear that can disrupt or rip apart tropical cyclones is still at least modest. Areas of sinking, dust-laden air from the Sahara Desert push westward across the Atlantic, suppressing thunderstorms needed for tropical development.

Beginning in July, tropical waves – the disturbances often serving as the seeds of tropical storms and hurricanes – become more numerous migrating westward off the African coast. Wind shear diminishes toward its seasonal low, and ocean temperatures warm in the summer heat. These are all favorable factors that combine to support not just tropical storms, but also hurricanes.

But that doesn't always happen in July or August: The graph below shows the actual dates of the season's first hurricane over the past 59 years, plotted as Julian days, where Jan. 1 would be Julian day 1, Feb. 1 Julian day 32 and so on.

As you can see, this date can vary year to year.

In 1970, Alma briefly became a hurricane on May 20 between Jamaica and Honduras before it weakened to a tropical depression 36 hours later in the western Caribbean Sea.

In 2016, Hurricane Alex made a freakish mid-January appearance south of the Azores in the eastern Atlantic Ocean.

We've also had very long waits for the first hurricane, including several times this century.

The 2013 season's first hurricane didn't develop until Sept. 11 (Humberto). That was also the case in 2002, with Gustav.

Does the timing of the first hurricane indicate an active season? Since 1966, we found 15 seasons in which the first hurricane arrived at least three weeks earlier than the July 26 average, 21 seasons in which it arrived within three weeks of the average date, and another 23 seasons in which it formed at least three weeks later than average.

As you might expect, "early first hurricane" seasons had about two to three more storms and about two more hurricanes than "late first hurricane" seasons.

However, the years with a near-average arrival of the first hurricane ended up with the most storms and hurricanes of all, by a slight margin.

Since the majority of a season's activity occurs during its late August through September peak, whether a storm manages to reach 75 mph winds in June or early July shouldn't matter for the overall season. One caveat to this, though, is the tendency for an early hurricane in the so-called main development region between the Lesser Antilles and west Africa to foreshadow an active season.

There were about three fewer storms and two to three fewer hurricanes in seasons with a late-arriving first hurricane compared to average.

If it takes until late August or September to finally generate a hurricane, large-scale conditions – such as persistent wind shear or sinking, dry air – may make the Atlantic Basin more hostile for tropical development in those years.

Where first hurricanes happen: On the map below are the locations of each of the season's first hurricanes since 1966. As you can see, there's a lot of spray in these points.

In general, the earlier-season hurricanes tend to form in the western Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico or Caribbean Sea, which matches the areas that are typically favorable for development in June or early July.

First hurricanes forming later in the season can form over a larger part of the Atlantic Basin.

Prepare now. Did you notice in the map above how many of the season's first hurricanes did so relatively close to the U.S.?

While not all of these make landfall, particularly those off the East Coast, it's a reminder that the time to prepare for hurricane season is now.