If it seems like July has had an unusual amount of tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic Basin - well, its probably because it has! Tropical Storm Cristobal, currently moving slowly northeastward off the North Carolina coast, was the second tropical cyclone to reach Tropical Storm intensity or greater this month (Bertha was the first), and Tropical Storm Dolly, currently in the western Caribbean Sea and moving toward the Yucatan Peninsula is the third. One-third of July still remains and a strong tropical wave moving off the coast of west Africa has at least some potential to become the fourth before this busy month comes to an end.

I was curious as to how often this has happened before in July - and the answer is 'not very often at all'. There have only been six other seasons (since 1851) that have produced three or more Tropical Storms (or Hurricanes) during the month of July. Those seasons with three or more tropical cyclones becoming Tropical Storms/Hurricanes in July (with their season totals for Tropical Storms / Hurricanes / Major Hurricanes) were:

1933 - 3 in July (21/10/5)
1944 - 3 in July (11/7/3)
1966 - 4 in July (11/7/3)
1995 - 4 in July (19/11/5)
1997 - 4 in July (8/3/1)
2005 - 5 in July (28/15/7)

Two observations are noteworthy. 1) The three seasons with the highest ever storm totals are on the list, i.e., 2005, 1933 and 1995. 2) None of these seasons matched the overall pattern and especially the SST trend for 2008 (at least not yet). So the next step was to try and find a season that did match up fairly well with the patterns and trends thus far for 2008. The season that best met the criteria was 1996 (13/9/6). Does it look eerily similar to you? The season of 2000 (15/8/3) was also fairly close, with the early season activity of 2008 running about a month ahead of both of those years. Data from the UNISYS archives:

1996 Season

2000 Season

It will be interesting to see how well either or both of these earlier seasons match up with 2008 when the current season is over.
ED