Canadian Hurricane Centre meteorologist Bob Robichaud will tell you the season isn’t done, but admits predicting the 2023 season has been increasingly difficult.
The season to date has been highlighted by warm waters in the Atlantic. Sea surface temperatures in June and July were the warmest since 1950, when analysis began, at 1.23 C above normal.
A slower onset of El Niño hasn’t helped either.
Normally, with El Niño, there would be two named storms; there have been 20 this year.
During the 2022 season, there were 14 named storms. Eight of them became hurricanes and two became major hurricanes: Fiona and Ian. Fiona was a powerful hurricane that initially hit communities in the Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Turks and Caicos.
“Water temperatures play a huge role. With Lee, it was one of the most rapidly inspiriting storms we’ve seen in Atlantic Canada,” Robichaud said, speaking from Halifax on Monday.
“It weakened as it crossed over a path which was associated with Franklyn a few weeks prior. It caused the water to be turned up and cooled somewhat, so here we saw this Category 5 hurricane move over a colder patch of water.”
Post-tropical storm Lee brought winds gusting well over 115 km/h in Halifax in September, coupled with rain near 100 millimetres in parts of New Brunswick. It left behind downed trees, powerlines and some damage across the coastline.
Almost 300,000 Maritimers lost power at some point through that storm.
While the Lee didn’t bring damage like Fiona nearly a year prior, storm surge, coastal flooding and wind damage caught meteorologists by surprise.
“We’re not going to get a Fiona every year, that’s for sure. But any given year, we could get an impactful storm, and that’s why we need to be prepared,” Robichaud said.
Improvements in tracking technology may have been a factor in why so many named storms have kept the eye of the National Hurricane Center.
But according to some, the increase in hurricanes may be a sign of a changing climate.
“We’ve unfortunately damaged or destroyed a significant amount of our ecosystems that are naturally defences to these types of disasters,” said Will Balser, the coastal adaptation co-ordinator with Ecology Action Centre.
“Even a regular storm 50 years ago will now cause more damage because we’ve intensified risky development (particularly on the coast), we’ve destroyed ecosystem defences and we’re facing a rising sea level.”
Balser said an increase in climate change will mean an increase in weather events in parts of eastern Canada.
Relatively warmer water off the coast of Atlantic Canada may have opened the door to an increase in hurricanes, according to the Ecology Action Centre, based in Halifax.
Meteorologists with Environment Canada say it’s too early to predict what next year’s hurricane season will look like.
The 2023 hurricane season ends in November.
— with files from Eric Stober and Alex Cooke
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