Carolinas' hurricane threat ending?

An evolving weather pattern could bring at least a temporary end to a Carolinas hurricane season that never really started.

It's too early to stick a fork in the 2013 tropical weather season for our part of the country, but the forecast trend for the remainder of October is not the kind of pattern that would favor tropical storms or hurricanes along the Carolinas coast.

A deep trough is forecast to set up shop over the eastern United States, and most long-range computer models predict the pattern will continue for the remainder of October. The trough will allow cold air to funnel southward, covering much of the area east of the Mississippi River.

This pattern will bring some snow to the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes, as increasingly colder air moves into that part of the country next week.

In the Carolinas, it will translate into clear skies, chilly temperatures and low humidity levels for much of next week. After an October with a steady diet of highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s and 60s, it'll be more like daytime highs of 65 degrees and morning lows in the lower 40s.

At this time of year, the most common breeding ground for tropical storms and hurricanes is the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.  Accu-Weather posted an article article today in which meteorologist Dan Kottlowski says the changing pattern actually might foster development of tropical storm activity.

But atmospheric steering currents would push any tropical systems either westward into Mexico or out into the Atlantic off the Florida coast. It's possible that rain from a tropical system could push northward into the Carolinas, but a direct hit from a storm would seem unlikely, given the predicted pattern.

It probably will be early November before the new pattern relents, and by that time, we'll be thinking more about winter weather than hurricanes.