If meteorological history repeats, it should be a quiet hurricane season in Florida this year - even though conditions are ripe for more than a dozen named Atlantic basin storms.That sums up Wednesday’s Colorado State University forecast that calls for 16 named tropical storms and hurricanes. The team says nine will become hurricanes, meaning sustained winds will reach 74 mph. Five are expected to be major hurricanes - Categories 3, 4 or 5 - with maximum wind speeds of 111 mph or greater. Forecasters Phil Klotzbach and William Gray at CSU’s Tropical Meteorology Project said this year is shaping up like those of 1955, 1996, 1999, 2006 and 2008 based on oceanic and atmospheric features observed during February and March and compared to those five years.
The weather phenomenon known as La Nina is influencing weather in the tropics, and Klotzbach and Gray base much of their forecast on that. La Nina is a period when sea surface temperature across areas of the Pacific Ocean will fluctuate by as much as 8 degrees.The forecast doesn’t specifically spell out what’s in store for Florida, but in those five years, only one hurricane struck the state. That was Irene in 1999, which had 95-mph winds when it landed in the Keys. “If A, B, C and D were in place then and A, B, C and D are in place now ... they look for similar characteristics,” said Jim Farrell, chief meteorologist at WINK-TV. Overall, the Colorado State forecast calls for nine hurricanes to form, five with sustained winds of at least 111 mph. “The unknowable,” Farrell said, “is where any of these might hit. It’s really not how many, but where they will go. Take last year. It was a busy year, but Southwest Florida was spared.” There were 19 named storms in 2010. None hit Florida. “We expect that anomalously warm tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures combined with neutral tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures will contribute to an active season,” Klotzbach said. “We have reduced our forecast slightly from early December due to a combination of recent ocean warming in the eastern and central tropical Pacific and recent cooling in the tropical Atlantic.” They had called for 17 storms in their earlier forecast. Gray, the nation’s hurricane guru, warned the recent lull in hurricane activity along U.S. coasts won’y last forever. “Except for the very destructive hurricane seasons of 2004-2005, United States coastal residents have experienced no other major landfalling hurricanes since 1999,” Gray said. Those two years included 24 hurricanes — among them Charley, which racked Southwest Florida in 2004, and Katrina, which pummeled New Orleans the next year. “This recent nine- of 11-year period without any major landfall events should not be expected to continue. “We remain — since 1995 — in a favorable multidecadal period for enhanced Atlantic Basin hurricane activity, which is expected to continue for the next 10 to 15 years or so.” The next hurricane forecast will be issued June 1, the first day of hurricane season. Last year, Klotzbach and Gray called for 15 named storms and eight hurricanes.
Actual numbers were 19 and 12. |
