2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season: ABC13 Chief Meteorologist Travis Herzog and Chief Forecaster David Tillman discuss what lies ahead

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — The peak of hurricane season is still less than a month away, but the tropics have already been quite active.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, has updated its hurricane forecast for 2024, and however you look at it, it’s something we’ll have to keep an eye on.

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“They still think it’s going to be an extremely active hurricane season. Initially, they were talking about up to 24 named storms. They’ve cut that number down by a couple, but we’re still talking about a hyperactive hurricane season,” said chief meteorologist David Tillman.

David and Chief Meteorologist Travis Herzog took a few minutes from the forecast to talk about what to expect for the rest of the season.

Travis noted that a second hurricane typically doesn’t form until Aug. 26, but as Southeast Texas knows, a storm made an early arrival on Beryl.

“We’re hoping Beryl is the last hurricane we see this season,” Travis said, adding that there have been a few times in history when the state has experienced multiple hurricanes in one season.

“If you think about how many storms we’ve had throughout history since records began in 1851, that’s only six seasons where we’ve seen multiple hurricanes,” Travis continued.

The most recent was in 2008, when Hurricane Ike hit our part of Texas, and then Dolly hit the southern part of the state.

In 1942, two hurricanes struck southeastern Texas nine days apart.

But 1886 was the hardest year of all. Four hurricanes hit the country that year. The worst was a Category 4 hurricane that hit Matagorda Bay and devastated the town of Indianola, Texas.

That’s the last thing Texans want to hear, but it’s also why cold fronts are our friends.

Fronts can cool water.

“If we can get to mid- to late October, we can start to breathe easy,” David said. “But with the Gulf of Mexico waters being so incredibly warm, this could be one of those years that could try to challenge that historical fact. We just have to keep our antennas up probably through October.”

Hurricane season ends on November 30th.

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