FLHurricane.com: The Atlantic/Pacific Thing

For many years, tropical meteorologists and savvy storm trackers have noted that when the Eastern Pacific tropical cyclone season is very busy, the Atlantic season is usually quiet – and vice versa. Some classic examples include 1992 with 27 named storms in the Eastern Pacific and only 7 in the Atlantic, or 1995 with 10 named storms in the Eastern Pacific and 19 in the Atlantic.

It looks like we could soon have our 4th named storm in the Eastern Pacific before the end of June and I was curious as to how often this busy early season happens in the EASTPAC. In the 46 seasons since the start of the satellite era (1964) there have been 9 seasons with 4 or more Tropical Storms/Hurricanes in the Eastern Pacific before the end of June – or about 20% of all seasons. Those 9 seasons were 1965, 1970, 1974, 1978, 1984, 1985, 1990, 1991 and 1992. For those 9 seasons, the average EASTPAC storm totals were 19/11/5.

For those same seasons in the Atlantic, the average storm totals were 10/5/2, with a range from 6/4/1 (1965) to 14/8/1 (1990). This provides us with an interesting statistical implication, i.e., whenever the EASTPAC has had 4 or more named storms prior to the end of June, the Atlantic basin has never had more than 14 named storms in the same season. Of course all records can eventually be broken.
ED