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<b>Forecasters See Above Average Hurricane Season in 2005</b>
William Gray of Colorado State University began garnering media attentions for his hurricane season forecasts in 1999. Since then hurricane forecasting has grown into what Florida State University climatologist James Elsner has wryly labeled a cottage industry.
Gray issues his forecast in December and then updates it in April, May, August, September and October. The Tropical System Risk climatologists from University College in London follow a similar timetable.
Both are predicting an above average year. Gray forecasts 13 named storms and seven hurricanes, three of them major. TSR is calling for 14 named storms and eight hurricanes, 4 of them major. Since 1950 10 named storms and six hurricanes, three of them major, have been the norm. One to two hurricanes a year on average make landfall in the United States. A major storm hits the United States on average once every three years.
Gray also issues landfall probability predictions. In April he calculated the chance that Florida or the U.S. East Coast will be hit by at least one intense hurricane, with winds over 110 mph, at 53 percent. The long-term average is 31 percent.
The amount of storms generated in a season appears to correlate with El Nino, a warm ocean current in the Pacific Ocean that expands from Asia toward South America in some years and recedes in others. In years when El Nino conditions exist off the coast of South America, the warm waters create upper level winds that inhibit tropical cyclone development in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico.
In late April, the scientists at University College announced that they had created a model that looks at broader wind patterns and would have accurately predicted last seasons unprecedented activity, when five hurricanes made landfall in the United States and four Charley, Frances, Jeanne and Ivan hit Florida in just six weeks. But their prediction for the 2005 season will not be issued until August, just ahead of the most active part of the hurricane season.
Meanwhile, in an interesting twist to the hurricane-season forecasting puzzle, Elsner has noted that since 1950 the chances of being hit by landfalling hurricane in Florida are actually slightly higher in years of average tropical activity than in years of above average activity. This suggests that the El Nino conditions that keep a season merely average may be accompanied by steering currents in the Atlantic that are more likely to steer the storms that do form toward the Southern U.S. That makes the record-breaking 2004 hurricane season, which featured an above average 14 storms, seem even more anomalous.
Then there is the lesson of Hurricane Andrew, one of the most devastating storms in U.S. history. Andrew raged ashore in August 1992 a year that produced just four named tropical storms.
Ultimately the greatest value in all these forecasts may be that they raise public awareness about the dangers of the upcoming hurricane season.
You cant outguess Mother Nature, says Max Mayfield, Director of the National Hurricane Center Not at the beginning of hurricane season, and especially not when a storm is bearing down on you. If you live in or near a coastal area or in an area prone to flooding from a hurricane or tropical system, you are at risk. Now is the time to get prepared.
More information:
<a href="http://hurricanesafety.org";>The National Hurricane Survival Initiative</a>
William Gray of Colorado State University began garnering media attentions for his hurricane season forecasts in 1999. Since then hurricane forecasting has grown into what Florida State University climatologist James Elsner has wryly labeled a cottage industry.
Gray issues his forecast in December and then updates it in April, May, August, September and October. The Tropical System Risk climatologists from University College in London follow a similar timetable.
Both are predicting an above average year. Gray forecasts 13 named storms and seven hurricanes, three of them major. TSR is calling for 14 named storms and eight hurricanes, 4 of them major. Since 1950 10 named storms and six hurricanes, three of them major, have been the norm. One to two hurricanes a year on average make landfall in the United States. A major storm hits the United States on average once every three years.
Gray also issues landfall probability predictions. In April he calculated the chance that Florida or the U.S. East Coast will be hit by at least one intense hurricane, with winds over 110 mph, at 53 percent. The long-term average is 31 percent.
The amount of storms generated in a season appears to correlate with El Nino, a warm ocean current in the Pacific Ocean that expands from Asia toward South America in some years and recedes in others. In years when El Nino conditions exist off the coast of South America, the warm waters create upper level winds that inhibit tropical cyclone development in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico.
In late April, the scientists at University College announced that they had created a model that looks at broader wind patterns and would have accurately predicted last seasons unprecedented activity, when five hurricanes made landfall in the United States and four Charley, Frances, Jeanne and Ivan hit Florida in just six weeks. But their prediction for the 2005 season will not be issued until August, just ahead of the most active part of the hurricane season.
Meanwhile, in an interesting twist to the hurricane-season forecasting puzzle, Elsner has noted that since 1950 the chances of being hit by landfalling hurricane in Florida are actually slightly higher in years of average tropical activity than in years of above average activity. This suggests that the El Nino conditions that keep a season merely average may be accompanied by steering currents in the Atlantic that are more likely to steer the storms that do form toward the Southern U.S. That makes the record-breaking 2004 hurricane season, which featured an above average 14 storms, seem even more anomalous.
Then there is the lesson of Hurricane Andrew, one of the most devastating storms in U.S. history. Andrew raged ashore in August 1992 a year that produced just four named tropical storms.
Ultimately the greatest value in all these forecasts may be that they raise public awareness about the dangers of the upcoming hurricane season.
You cant outguess Mother Nature, says Max Mayfield, Director of the National Hurricane Center Not at the beginning of hurricane season, and especially not when a storm is bearing down on you. If you live in or near a coastal area or in an area prone to flooding from a hurricane or tropical system, you are at risk. Now is the time to get prepared.
More information:
<a href="http://hurricanesafety.org";>The National Hurricane Survival Initiative</a>
