Despite forecasts of an above-average Atlantic hurricane season, none of the seven tropical storms experienced so far this year have reached hurricane strength, making 2013 the first year in more than a decade to not have produced a landfall by August.

According to Claire Souch, vice president of model solutions at RMS, hurricanes have been unable to form so far in 2013 due to higher-than-normal wind shear in the atmosphere, cooler sea temperatures in the eastern Atlantic, and sand and dust particles from the Saharan air that have been pushed into the atmosphere, disrupting hurricanes that would normally be formed by tropical waves coming from western North Africa.

The Atlantic hurricane season has been relatively quiet, with eight tropical storms and no hurricanes. Last year at this time there were 13 named storms and seven hurricanes.

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