Hours after the National Hurricane Center issued its last advisory on what was a post-tropical Karl in Mexico and marked a tropical wave several hundred miles southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands on Saturday morning, the 1 p.m. advisory map is as clean as one could hope for during the hurricane season.
But is that unusual?
Not really, explains Brad Reinhart, a hurricane specialist with the National Hurricane Center.
“As you know, the peak of hurricane season is typically mid-September and now that we’re here in mid-October, historically, this is the time of year when we start to see a pretty sharp decline in the amount of overall tropical storm and hurricane activity. So it’s certainly not unprecedented that there are stretches this time of year whereas the tropics wind down there might not be developed for several days,” Reinhart said.
This can apply even in the hours between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. when the map of the Atlantic showed two “X” marks representing systems and five hours later the map’s spotless.
Earlier, the tropical wave off the African coast was several hundred miles southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands and produced a broad area of disorganized showers and thunderstorms. But the development chances had fallen to near zero percent chance in both two and five days.
Mark that one gone.
According to the 8 a.m. Saturday advisory, Karl was a post-tropical cyclone with winds of 30 mph after making landfall as such on Mexico’s southern coast. Even though diminished, Karl’s remnants could still bring heavy rain, flash flooding, and mudslides to Mexico’s Veracruz, Tabasco, Chiapas, and Oaxaca through the weekend the center had said.
4 AM CDT Saturday: Key Messages for #Karl.
— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) October 15, 2022
Heavy rainfall associated with the remnants of Karl could produce instances of flash flooding, with mudslides in areas of higher terrain, across portions of Veracruz, Tabasco, Chiapas and Oaxaca states in Mexico. pic.twitter.com/KpL9MBoq4C
Karl was the 11th named storm of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season and if there’s another before hurricane season winds to a close on Nov. 30, it will be named Lisa.
Source: NOAA
