Another above-normal hurricane season predicted

[Steff]

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/241...p-8789755c.html

 

 

NOAA

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

 

Get your hurricane plans ready. It's going to be a bad hurricane season -- and the long-term trend suggests more bad seasons may follow, experts say.

The Atlantic will have 12 to 15 tropical storms, seven to nine of them becoming hurricanes, and three to five of those hurricanes being major, Conrad Lautenbacher Jr., head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday.

 

"We can't predict this far in advance how many will strike land," he said, standing in front of a "hurricane hunter" aircraft. But, given the active season, "We would say, `Be prepared for two or three of these to make landfall.'"

 

Lautenbacher said the forecast was based on a large number of factors, including air pressure, surface temperatures, and upper-, lower-, and mid-level winds.

 

They are "setting up to make the same kind of system we had last year, for a very, very severe system," he said. "Very little vertical windshear, which allows the hurricane to form. Then westerly winds which allow those winds to be pushed into an area where they can cause difficulties in our part of the world."

 

He said the mild "El Nino" -- warm sea surfaces in parts of the equatorial Pacific -- is not expected to affect this season.

 

Last year, 12 to 15 named storms were predicted, including six to eight hurricanes, two to four of them classified major. Instead, there were six major hurricanes out of nine hurricanes and 15 named storms.

 

Forecasters at Colorado State University also predict a significantly above-average Atlantic hurricane season. In April, William Gray and his team said they expect 13 named storms including seven hurricanes, three of them major.

 

The hurricane season begins June 1 and ends Nov. 30.

 

The Atlantic seasons were relatively mild from the 1970s through 1994, and all but two since then have been above normal. The world may be just halfway through a 20-year cycle, Lautenbacher said.

 

Speakers stressed that people need to plan. A recent Mason-Dixon poll of 1,100 people from Texas to Maine found that 47 percent of them had no hurricane plans.

 

National Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield said experience from Florida's four hurricanes last year bears out the need for such plans. "People who had a hurricane plan did much better than those who didn't," he said.

 

And, as he did at a hurricane conference in New Orleans earlier this year, Mayfield urged people to pay less attention to the black line which forecasters use for the most likely storm track, and more to the area on either side of it on the forecast map.

 

Despite great strides in predicting landfall over the past 15 years, the average error during the last 24 hours is still 85 miles, Mayfield said.

 

"Those storms can literally turn on a dime," added Mike Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

[Heads22]

Man, I can't imagine the s*** you'd get if there was a Hurricane Steff. You'd never hear the end of it.

[mreye]

Man, I can't imagine the s*** you'd get if there was a Hurricane Steff. You'd never hear the end of it.

Oh, there have been a few people that have experienced Hurrican Steff.

[Steff]

Oh, there have been a few people that have experienced Hurrican Steff.   

 

 

 

LMAO!!!

[kapkomet]

mreye, you beat me to it. I was going to say, isn't it here every day?

 

[FlaSoxxJim]

There are still hundreds of people down here with temporary tarps on their roofs from the last go around, and I still have friends living in FEMA trailers while their houses are being repaired. There are not many folks looking forward to another busy season.

 

In related news, some friends of mine are about to have a baby that is also directly related to the hurricanes of 2004. I guess there's only so many board games you can play before you have to find something else to do when the power is out for a few days...

[Heads22]

There are still hundreds of people down here with temporary tarps on their roofs from the last go around, and I still have friends living in FEMA trailers while their houses are being repaired.  There are not many folks looking forward to another busy season.

 

In related news, some friends of mine are about to have a baby that is also directly related to the hurricanes of 2004.  I guess there's only so many board games you can play before you have to find something else to do when the power is out for a few days... 

 

Like trade baseball cards?