AccuWeather's Bernie Rayno breaks down when the heart of hurricane season is.

Meteorologists note that the majority of hurricanes and the strongest storms typically develop from mid-August through September. While hurricane season officially runs from June to November, the peak activity is concentrated in these months due to optimal conditions in the Atlantic Basin.

During this period, the breeding grounds for storms shift from near the U.S. coastline to the tropical Atlantic, driven by warmer water temperatures, reduced wind shear, and less Saharan dust. These factors open up the entire Atlantic Basin for storm development, with hotspots including the northwest Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the southwestern Atlantic.

The heart of hurricane season

All right, we're closing in on the heart of the hurricane season. Take a look. This is the timing of the hurricane season, which begins in June, ends in November. Sometimes you can get storms at the beginning, before the season starts, and even at the end after the season ends. But the majority of them are right in here, from mid-August right through the month of September, where you see a lot of the named storms, and of course, not only the hurricanes, but the strongest hurricanes occur during that time. So it's mostly August and the month of September. Here are the breeding grounds. Early in the month, you know, you look near the United States. In fact, we had storms off the southeast coast of the United States earlier in the month. But by the time you get in the mid to late August, as our jet stream continues to lift north, you lose the homegrown development, and you start looking at these tropical waves coming off Africa, and that's why you see the breeding ground here a little farther in the tropical Atlantic. Now there's a reason for that, because once we get into the heart of the hurricane season, we start getting the peak of the water temperatures in the Atlantic Basin. That's number one. Number two, less wind shear, and more critically, less Saharan dust. And with warm waters, less dust, less shear, you start opening up all of the Atlantic Basin for development. And in fact, when you look at the month of September where you get storms, note that the entire Atlantic Basin is open for business. Hotspots include the Northwest Caribbean and the Gulf, and much of the southwestern Atlantic, and these are generally steered around our Bermuda high-pressure system. AccuWeather Early continues after this.

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