Hurricane season: It must be a slow start, right?

With just one tropical depression thus far in the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season, some may be saying “this is a slow start!”. Well, statistics will show you otherwise. Thanks to TWC senior met, Jon Erdman for digging up these percentages…

Average number of days per season with tropical cyclone activity
 

Did you know that only 8% of named storms on average occur during the month of June; and yet again just 8% occur during the month of July?

Add those percentages up and they still don’t add up to more than the individual months of August, September or October!

Here are the % of named storms that occur in an average year by month:

June: 8%
July: 8%
August: 21%
September: 37%
October: 21%
November: 4%
Other months: 1%

Moreover, since 1965, the date of the season’s first hurricane is July 30.

So the point is, tropical activity may be quiet right now but in actuality that is the norm for June and July. The season really doesn’t get into gear until August and then really ramps up in September.

Weather.com