Where are all those predicted hurricanes? Experts fear they're still coming.

Outlooks for the 2024 hurricane season were dire, and its unprecedented early start with Category 5 Hurricane Beryl raised greater concern that those forecasts would verify. And then …

No named storms have formed since Aug. 12. Not since 1968 has there been a stretch this long with no hurricane formations between August and September, said Phil Klotzbach, senior hurricane scientist at Colorado State University, where Bill Gray pioneered seasonal hurricane forecasting 40 years ago.

This lull in activity, despite predictions for a hyperactive season, has surprised and puzzled scientists who write seasonal outlooks. Most forecasts called for up to 25 named storms. Only five have formed so far, including three hurricanes.

Things may finally be cranking up.

The National Hurricane Center’s forecast map Thursday showed five separate lemon-yellow circles for potential storm formation. But none of those storms listed a development potential over 30% for the next seven days, and meteorologists say the absence of tropical storms and hurricanes may continue for at least the next several days.

Though it’s looking less likely that 2024 will be one for the record books, experts still expect the season to be busier than normal. The season typically peaks around Sept. 10, but that leaves 12 weeks to go until it ends Dec. 1.

What happens next?

“From our perspective right now, things are still on track,” said Dan Harnos, a meteorologist with the team at the Climate Prediction Center who prepares the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's seasonal outlook.

Conditions are still favorable, with very warm and record warm ocean temperatures across much of the Atlantic, Harnos said. “There’s plenty of room for the tide to turn with all the warm water out there. Things could change quickly.

“I don’t think anybody expected a break in late August like this. But we have had a decent amount of activity, and I think it will pick up at some point. It’s just a question of what the numbers look like in the end.”

Though much has been made of the lull, the average date for the fifth named storm is Aug. 22, and Ernesto formed 10 days earlier than that. The average date for the third hurricane to form is Sept. 7.

Hurricane Beryl Some Caribbean islands saw almost 'total destruction'

A typical hurricane season has 14 named storms and seven hurricanes. Even if the season has no named storm activity through Sept. 9 and then sees average activity for the rest of the season, the season would still wind up on the high end of the average, according to an analysis released this week by Klotzbach's team at Colorado State.

Though seasonal outlooks can predict what happens overall during a hurricane season, when the activity occurs within that season “is not something we can predict at this point,” said Andrew Hazelton, an associate scientist at the University of Miami’s Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies and NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanic Meteorological Laboratory.

“We won’t know for a few weeks whether it was a lull or enough of a sustained break to cause forecasts to fall a little bit short of what we expected," Hazelton said. "Water temperatures have stayed well above normal, so it really just seems like it's a matter of time until things align.

"There may be a period in three or four weeks when you know things just line up perfectly. Maybe it's a later peak than we expected, but it's still huge. We just don't know."

What happened to hurricane season in August?

A busy hurricane season can’t be attributed to just one thing or another, said Craig Setzer, chief meteorologist, Royal Caribbean Group. “It’s usually many different things that operate in concert, that bring about some type of different weather pattern.”

Seasonal forecast outlooks indicated the main "ingredients" – record warm or very warm water and an active monsoon season – appeared to be in place this year for a repeat of the 27 named tropical systems in 2005 or even the 30 named storms in 2020.

The ocean is still extremely warm or at near record temperatures at the surface and in the upper layer of the ocean, meteorologists said this week.

But changes in the monsoon pattern, dry air, Saharan dust and warmer temperatures in an upper layer of the atmosphere all switched up the ingredients, Setzer said.

Each of those factors will be studied as scientists review the season, Hazelton said.

Warmer upper air layer puts damper on storms

“When we saw Beryl, which became a Category 5, everybody immediately thought: 'This is it. This is going to be the worst of all seasons,” Setzer said. But then the higher parts of the atmosphere started to warm up.

To form the clouds needed to make tropical storms, the environment needs the instability that comes from a layer of warm air at the surface topped by a layer of cooler air above. This summer, the warmer upper atmosphere made conditions more stable. Setzer said the instability needed for a system to form thunderstorms just hasn't been there.

Those warmer upper-level temperatures have been warmer than any other year, and that may be a sign that warming linked to El Ni?o on an annual basis or human-caused climate change at a decadal time scale could cause additional stability concerns in future years, according to Colorado State.

West African monsoon

A typical instigator of August hurricane activity is the West African monsoon trough. Monsoon waves come off the west coast of Africa and often become storms as they trek across the Atlantic. This year the waves pushed off the continent at more northern latitudes and into drier air from Europe that inhibited storm development.

“The African monsoon has been so strong and these waves have been so coming off so far north that they're almost coming off too far north to develop,” Hazelton said.

"The trough has shifted so far north in 2024 that easterly waves are emerging over the cold waters of the northeast Atlantic west of Mauritania," the Colorado State analysis said. The set up of extremely warm ocean temperatures in the Atlantic's main storm development region, with a pattern of cooler sea surface temperatures near the equator, may have helped push the monsoon waves northward.

Saharan dust

Saharan dust has been more active than anticipated at the start of the season, with the trade winds carrying more dust than expected off Africa and into and across the Atlantic. The sand and minerals tend to help depress storms, which are fueled by moisture.

Harnos said scientists aren't yet proficient at predicting exactly when the plumes of dust will occur.

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Is it still possible to have an active hurricane season?

Yes. Will it be as active as predicted? Maybe not, meteorologists said. But given the extraordinary arrival of Beryl so early in the season, and the extreme water temperatures remaining in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, they aren't ready to write off any possibilities for 2024.

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As the air cools with the approaching fall, it's expected to do two things. The Atlantic is still "extremely warm," so it will increase the potential for the instability that helps storms form. Cooler temperatures also are expected to help nudge the monsoon waves southward, where they'll encounter a more favorable environment offshore.

And finally, conditions are expected to trend toward La Ni?a, which produces cooler winds along the equator west of South America but reduces wind shear over the Atlantic, creating a more storm-friendly environment.

Every season since 1900 with a hurricane in the tropical Atlantic before Aug. 1 ended as an above normal season, according to Colorado State.

Dinah Voyles Pulver covers climate change and the environment for USA TODAY. She's been writing about hurricanes, tornadoes and violent weather for more than 30 years. Reach her at [email protected] or @dinahvp.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hurricane season forecast remains worrisome, despite current lull