A Dusty Start to the Atlantic Hurricane Season, but How Dusty is It?
The 5th named storm of the eastern Pacific could form this week, a record for this early in the year
As we’ve written in previous newsletters, the Atlantic’s seen several early season Saharan dust outbreaks, some of which have reached our skies stateside in South Florida. But exactly how unusual have the dust outbreaks been?
The big dust outbreak of the year so far came during the last week of May when dust hit its highest May levels in 8 years.
Since then dust has fallen to more typical levels for the time of year. Though impressive, the dust outbreak that capped off May wasn’t historically significant and overall dust across the tropical north Atlantic since middle May has been running only a little above average, but behind recent years like 2022, 2021, 2015, and 2014.
That said, the dust has seemed sizeable when compared to the early days of the 2023 and 2024 hurricane seasons, when Saharan dust was at some of its lowest levels on record, something we wrote about at the time. The early dust outbreaks in 2025 may be compounding the Atlantic cooldown that we discussed in the daily newsletter on Friday.
A stronger than average Bermuda/Azores high could be promoting early dust spates and is the main factor responsible for strong east-to-west flowing trade winds in the Atlantic that are cooling the surface waters.
Expect more dust ahead as seasonally dust peaks later in June and July across the Atlantic. We’ll see how long the dust sticks around but its influence usually falls off quickly in August as hurricane season activity picks up.
Quantity over quality in the eastern Pacific
As we previewed last week, the eastern Pacific is in for yet another storm this week. So far the basin has recorded four named storms in 2025, the most to date of any season in 51 years. Never has the eastern Pacific recorded five named storms before the third week of June, a record that looks to be broken this week.
Although the number of storms to form so far has been significant, the storms have generally stayed weak and only one storm so far has reached hurricane status. This means overall activity across the eastern Pacific – as measured by the Accumulated Cyclone Energy or ACE – is not especially high so far in 2025.
Recent years like 2015, 2014, and 2018 that had fewer storms but much stronger hurricanes by this point in the season had substantially higher ACE numbers than 2025. By this point in 2015, the eastern Pacific had recorded three hurricanes, two of which were Category 4 hurricanes, with an overall ACE five times higher than this season.
The bottom line is overall numbers in the eastern Pacific don’t tell the whole story of activity so far, and while the quantity of storms suggest a busy start, the quality of those storms don’t suggest they’re necessarily a harbinger of a hyperactive hurricane season.
Atlantic pitching a shutout through week 3 of the season
It looks like the Atlantic’s shutout will continue through the 3rd week of the hurricane season. Forecast models remain muted and organized storminess should stay on the Pacific side of Mexico.
While the Atlantic’s slumber feels unusual, historically the first named storm doesn’t form until around the third week of June. We’ll enjoy the peace and quiet while we have it.
Hope the dust continues, wish it would through August -November but I guess we can't have everything.