For the first time in recorded history, the daily average surface temperature of the Gulf of Mexico never fell below 73 degrees F during the just concluded meteorological winter. This is raising fears that spring and summer storms, including tornadoes, may have a significant increase due to warmer and additional moist air flowing into the southern United States from the Gulf of Mexico.
ars Technica reports:
Houston meteorologist Matt Lanza recently noted that a city on the upper Texas coast, Galveston, had been setting a staggering number of high temperature records this winter. About one-fourth of the days saw record highs, so Lanza reached out to the local forecast office of the National Weather Service to see if they had any concerns about thermometer calibration or recent land-use changes at Scholes Field in Galveston, where the temperature is recorded. No, he was told, it has just been that "sort of winter."
From the period of November through February, Galveston ended up setting a total of 31 record high temperatures. And it is not like Galveston is a recently thrown-up beach community; the city it has a history that goes back two centuries. It formerly served as the capital of the Republic of Texas, and it has formal meteorological records that date all the way back to 1874.
It wasn't hard to find the culprit for Galveston's heat this winter, as the barrier island's weather is dominated by the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf has been extremely warm this year. In fact, for the first time on record, the daily average surface temperature never fell below 73 degrees Fahrenheit during the just-concluded meteorological winter. It's enough for us to wonder, beyond the climate implications of a steamy Gulf and its impact on temperatures in the southern United States, how might the heat affect storm seasons later in the year?
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Given the very warm baseline for Gulf temperatures this spring, some meteorologists are already concerned about the potential for an early and active spring storm season, with warmer, more moist air flowing in off the Gulf of Mexico. However, it bears repeating that the relationship is not absolute—there are still many other ingredients needed for supercells to form, including large, upper-level storm systems spinning down into the central plains from the Rocky Mountains.
The article notes that Hurricane activity will not increase as they are a summer phenomenon, and that the surface waters at that time are always above 80 degrees which is the temperature necessary to support cyclone activity.