It's the end of August, and we are roughly ten days into the climatological peak of the Atlantic Hurricane Season, so it's a good time to take a look at how this year is stacking up against other normal to hyperactive seasons.

Well, as of today we have our second Major of the year, Irma, with the cyclone gaining that distinction this afternoon. Irma is forecast to remain a powerful hurricane for many days yet to come, potentially sending the season's ACE, or Accumulated Cyclone Energy (index), well above average.

As of today, ACE is about average, given a number of short-lived systems, but in sheer numbers of systems, 2017 is looking more impressive (Image below)

Speaking of Irma, according to Dr. Klotzbach, she is the '4th consecutive Atlantic named storm to reach hurricane strength - first time this has happened since 2012.'

2012 was a pretty active year - 19/10/2.

Named Storms (NS) and Hurricanes (HURs) running roughly 200% of Climo, with Majors on average not even occurring at all until the 4th of next month, so way, way, way above 'average.'

Contributors to this year being 'busy' mostly remain as they were when I started this thread, except now even more fully established. Some examples:

Main Development Region SSTs
Sea Surface Temps in the MDR continue trending up. WAY up. In fact, they have just surpassed the records set in 2005 and 2010. Image below credit Michael Lowry @MichaelRlowry

Main Development Region Shear
Wind shear in the MDR continues its trend of running well below climo. Image below credit Michael Lowry

Tropical Atlantic Region THDV
This season's suppressor.
Remains anomalously low, as it has all year, but is now tracking in a range that is supportive to very supportive, just as a result of pure climatology, and this may also start to trend a bit higher in part owing to the fantastically warm SSTs.