What’s next? It’s not Hurricane Chris

Although Hurricane Beryl has rightly dominated the headlines over the past few weeks, we’re further down the list of names for hurricane season than you probably think. The next name on the list is actually Debby.

That’s because we already had a “C” storm, but it was undone by a lack of power and bad timing. Chris was a short-lived tropical storm that made landfall in eastern Mexico late on the evening of June 30, while Hurricane Beryl made landfall in the Leeward Islands and eastern Caribbean.

While Beryl garnered so much attention, Chris seemed to be overlooked by many people: We noticed an unusually high level of search activity this week around the term “Hurricane Chris,” a storm that never happened—at least not this year.

Saharan dust has covered large parts of the tropical Atlantic, the Caribbean and even the Gulf of Mexico, limiting the development of thunderstorms and thus suppressing any tropical activity.

Saharan dust is common in the early months of hurricane season, but its impacts subside in August and certainly into September.

Jonathan Belles is a graphic meteorologist and author for wetter.com for 8 years and also helps produce videos for The Weather Channel en español. His favorite weather is tropical weather, but he also enjoys covering extreme weather events and news and winter storms. He has two degrees from Florida State University and is a proud graduate of St. Petersburg College.