The 2013 hurricane season ends this Saturday – and it barely scratched us Florida. What scientists predicted would be an especially busy year for storms turned out to be one of the quietest in decades. WLRN’s Tim Padgett talked with the National Hurricane Center here in Miami to find out why.

The Atlantic basin, which includes the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, saw only two hurricanes this year. That’s the fewest since 1982, according to the season-end report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Neither storm reached even Category 2 strength. That hasn’t happened since 1968.
This despite the fact that ocean waters were very warm, which is usually jet fuel for hurricanes. But Chris Landsea, the Hurricane Center’s science and operations officer, says unexpected factors above the water overpowered the storms. Among them: dry, sinking air.

“We saw drier than normal conditions, and some of that is being produced by the sinking air, because you’re bringing very, very dry air from aloft down", Landsea said. "So it made it difficult for hurricanes to spin up.”

Strong wind shears and cold fronts also thwarted hurricanes.

“Ironically, hurricanes like a nice quiet atmosphere", explained Landsea. "They don’t like it where there’s a lot of wind to disrupt them. So if you get a change of winds with height that’s very strong, it’ll kind of knock the top off the storm.”

Most intriguing is evidence that dust clouds from the Sahara Desert may have also smothered storm formation. But the Hurricane Center warns that 2013 was an aberration – and that we’re still in an active hurricane cycle that could last another decade.