After Hurricane Helene, a new storm named Kirk has intensified into a Category 3 hurricane and is likely to become the third major hurricane of this year’s Atlantic hurricane season. What does the weather forecast for October hold regarding these powerful storms?
Hurricane Kirk Continues to Strengthen, Forecasted to be the Third Strongest of 2024
According to the latest hurricane report from the National Hurricane Center, Hurricane Kirk reached Category 3 status on October 2. The storm is located approximately 1,855 km northeast of the Lesser Antilles, with maximum sustained winds of 195 km/h.
Notably, the latest hurricane in the Atlantic is moving northwest at a speed of 19 km/h. It is expected that this week, Hurricane Kirk will gradually shift toward the northwest and then head north.
The large waves generated by Hurricane Kirk could impact some areas of the Leeward Islands and Bermuda by the end of the week.
Kirk intensified from a tropical depression to a tropical storm on September 30, and then strengthened to a Category 1 hurricane on October 1.
Latest image of Hurricane Kirk. (Photo: NOAA).
Storm forecaster Brooke Silverang from WPBF 25 Certified First Warning stated that Hurricane Kirk has the potential to become the third major hurricane of the 2024 season, following Beryl and Helene.
Hurricane Kirk formed and rapidly strengthened while many residents in southeastern America still lack clean water, mobile phone service, and electricity, as rescue teams are searching for missing persons after Hurricane Helene made landfall last week as a Category 4 storm, leaving numerous casualties and catastrophic damage.
Forecast of Hurricane Kirk being the third strongest in the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. (Photo: NOAA).
According to the National Hurricane Center, Hurricane Kirk is intensifying and is expected to become a larger and more intense hurricane.
Sharing insights about this storm, hurricane forecasting expert Michael Lowry at WPLG Local 10 in Miami noted that although Hurricane Kirk will turn north and remain over the Atlantic, the large swells generated by this major storm could extend all the way to the eastern coast of the United States, from the mid-Atlantic to the northeastern coastal areas, from early to mid-next week.
In addition to Hurricane Kirk, the National Hurricane Center is monitoring a broad low-pressure system causing widespread rain and thunderstorms from the Caribbean Sea to the southern Gulf of Mexico.
Weather forecasters believe that environmental conditions could allow this low-pressure system to strengthen, and a tropical depression could form by the weekend as this system moves fully into the Gulf of Mexico.
Another low-pressure system in the eastern tropical Atlantic has intensified into Tropical Depression 13 as of September 30. On October 2, hurricane forecaster Philip Klotzbach from Colorado State University reported that this tropical depression had strengthened into Hurricane Leslie, becoming the fifth storm formed since September 24, following Helene, Isaac, Joyce, and Kirk. This sets a record for the number of storms during the period from September 24 to October 2, surpassing the previous record of three storms.
Frequent Major Hurricanes Like Helene Expected
In the early forecasts for the 2024 hurricane season, experts have determined that this will be an extremely intense hurricane season. Recently, Category 4 Hurricane Helene swept through the southeastern United States last week, ending hopes for a quiet hurricane season.
Moreover, the hurricane season is still quite long, with “October typically being a month of intense hurricane activity, especially in the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and off the southeastern U.S. coast” – stated Brian McNoldy, hurricane research expert at the Rosenstiel School, University of Miami.
Weather experts forecast that after Hurricane Helene, the first two weeks of October will see a flurry of hurricanes and tropical depressions in the Atlantic. (Photo: CIRA).
Meanwhile, hurricane forecasting expert Michael Lowry at WPLG Local 10 in Miami predicts that “there will be a return of major hurricanes in the first week of October”, as he noted in his daily update on October 1.
Brian McNoldy also pointed out that storm names that cause catastrophic damage have often been removed from the list of storm names since 1953.
