Welcome To Hurricane Season

Today is the first day of June, and also the first day of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. Seems like everyone in the “hurricane outlook” business is expecting another busy year. The guys at NOAA say there is a 70 percent chance of an above-normal hurricane season this year, and they are expecting 12 to 15 tropical storms, with 7 to 9 becoming hurricanes and 3 to 5 major hurricanes. Their reasoning involves continued warm SSTs (sea surface temperatures) in the Atlantic basin, and expected ENSO-neutral conditions (no El Nino or La Nina) during August through October, the normal peak of the season.

Dr. William Gray and his team at Colorado State University are forecasting 15 named storms, 8 hurricanes, and 4 intense hurricanes. His package includes a 77 percent chance of at least one major hurricane making landfall on the U.S. coast. Breaking that down further, here are more probabilities for at least one major hurricane making landfall: The east coast of the U.S., including the Florida peninsula: 59 percent, the Gulf coast from the Florida panhandle to Brownsville, TX: 44 percent. Those numbers are higher than Dr. Gray’s previous forecast since he is now confident there will be no El Nino conditions across the tropics.

Also, the ole “global warming” debate is heating up as the season begins. One guy out at NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) is blaming the increased hurricane activity last year on “global warming”, while the guys at TPC (the Tropical Prediction Center) are poo-pooing all of that, saying that the large number of hurricanes was simply due to natural variability in tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic basin.

Lots of talk going on right now, it is all interesting but only time will tell what goes on in the tropical waters this season. It should be very interesting one way or another.