Least Active Atlantic Hurricane Season In 30 Years

There's been 11 tropical storm or hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean this year, which is actually close to average.

Satellite view of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Thankfully,
we didn't have to deal with anything like this in 2013.  

So why does it feel like we haven't had a hurricane season to speak of at all?

Everything that has managed to form this year has been weak and short lived.

The United States has been fortunate enough not to have to deal this summer and fall with storm surges, mass evacuations, destructive winds and huge floods from hurricanes.

A much better way to measure the intensity of the hurricane season that by just counting the number of storms is to pay attention to something called the Accumulated Cyclone Energy, or ACE of the season.

ACE is a formula that tallies up the commulative strength and staying power of all the tropical storms and hurricanes during a season.

The math and science of calculating the ACE score is pretty complicated, so I'll just say if you get a lot of giant hurricanes that last a long time, the Accumulated Cyclone Energy is a big number. If you get weak systems that fall apart quickly, like this year, the number is low. According to The Weather Channel, the ACE so far this year is the lowest in 30 years.

In a normal Atlantic hurricane season, we get an ACE score of 110. So far this year, we're at 28. In 2005, when we had a large number of hurricanes, some of them blockbusters like Katrina, Rita and Wilma, the ACE score was over 250.

According to Accuweather, there doesn't seem to be much of a trend over the years the Accumulated Cyclone Energy rising or falling much.

Of course, a low ACE score doesn't help you if one of the few strong tropical storms or hurricanes hits the coastline near you. But this year, the United States has gotten the added benefit of having few of these storms come ashore. Or if they do, they're already falling apart.

The quiet season defies widespread predictions that this year's hurricane season would be busy and destructive. The ocean temperatures were warmer than normal, the El Nino weather pattern that usually discourages hurricanes wasn't around, so everything pointed to a busy season.

It just goes to show scientists need to learn more about what goes into a busy season. We do know unusual amounts of dry air and dust over the Atlantic Ocean prevented hurricanes from getting going. Now we need to understand why this happened and how better to predict these conditions so we can anticipate the severity of a hurricane season.

This year's low ACE score is obviously a very good thing for the United States. What with the repeated floods, droughts, storms, fires, snows and other big weather extremes we've had this year, it's nice that we're not getting hurricanes to add to the destruction.