I can't help thinking that one obvious possible reason for this relationship might be that when May is extremely dry, that means there has been little cloud cover in the the coastal areas and this might allow much more heat energy to build up (I.E. water temperatures). I know the GOM has been warming rapidly in May after stalling a bit due to a wet February and early March. Wonder if any cross correlations have been done with rainfall, water temps and hurricanes. I know there are a zillion other factors involved, but it has been sweltering under those clear blue skies this month.

What do our FLH experts think?