Today marks the historic high point of hurricane season, when the Atlantic tropics are most active.

This year is no different, with Hurricane Katia and Tropical Storms Maria and Nate churning away.

Ironically, even as the Atlantic tropics reach their peak and Texas marks the anniversaries of 1961's Hurricane Carla on Sunday and 2008's Hurricane Ike next Tuesday, chances of a hurricane making landfall on the state this year are falling.

"Historically, hurricanes rarely impact the Texas coast after mid-September, and I don't think that this year will be any different," said Chris Hebert, a hurricane forecaster with Houston's ImpactWeather.

After Sept. 24, just three storms have made landfall at hurricane intensity along the Texas coast during the last 150 years. And the next two weeks look to remain quiet off the Texas coast.

"The persistent ridge of high pressure which has dominated Texas through the summer will be returning late this weekend," Hebert said. "With that ridge in place, it will be hard to get any tropical moisture into Texas."

Long-range models don't indicate any possible tropical threat to Texas, nor do they offer the region any hope for rain over the next few weeks, Hebert said.

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.

None of the current three active tropical systems poses a threat to Texas.

Hurricane Katia has turned to the northeast, and over the colder waters of the North Atlantic Ocean it soon will become a non-tropical system.

Farther south, Tropical Storm Maria should pass near Puerto Rico this weekend, and the National Hurricane Center in Miami expects the system to become a hurricane next week.

However, forecasters expect Maria, like Katia, to follow a track between Bermuda and the U.S. East Coast before turning toward the open north Atlantic waters.

Finally, there's Tropical Storm Nate in the southern Gulf of Mexico. Forecasters say the system should begin moving westward this weekend as high pressure builds to its north, precluding a northward movement into the central Gulf of Mexico.

Nate appears destined to make landfall into Mexico late Sunday or Monday as a hurricane, somewhere south of Tampico.

eric.berger@chron.com