Greetings from Kazakhstan!

I’m just popping in because I want to talk briefly about hurricanes. The Atlantic, at present, is utterly quiet. This is surprising given that the historical peak of Atlantic season activity came just two weeks ago.

Although there remain two months left during the Atlantic season, this is actually the time of year when we can begin to downgrade the threat to the Texas coast from hurricanes.

The following map shows all of the storms that have made landfall at hurricane intensity in Texas after Sept. 24. As you can see there are just three hurricanes that hit Texas, most recently Hurricane Jerry in 1989.

So it’s possible for a hurricane strike after Sept. 24, but the odds are about 50-to-1 based upon a century and a half of hurricane records. Why is Texas at less of a risk compared with other areas of the Gulf Coast?

By mid- to late September, the jet stream typically dips farther south across the United States, pushing cold fronts to the Texas coast. These fronts buffer the approach of tropical systems, pushing them east toward the north-central or northeastern Gulf Coast.

At the same time, the Bermuda High — a large region of high pressure centered over Bermuda that typically stretches all the way to Texas through the summer — starts to weaken and retreat to the east. This allows storms to turn northeast before tracking all the way into the western Gulf of Mexico.

The bottom line is that while we can’t rule out a late season hurricane, a tropics season that’s been quiet for Texas is very likely to remain so.