Posted on 03/21/2007 7:35:25 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
MIAMI (Reuters) - The Atlantic hurricane season will be exceptionally active this year, according to a British forecasting group, raising the possibility that killer storms like Hurricane Katrina could again threaten the United States.
London-based forecaster Tropical Storm Risk on Tuesday said the six-month season, which begins on June 1, was expected to bring 17 tropical storms, of which nine will strengthen into hurricanes with winds of at least 74 miles per hour.
Four of those are expected to become more destructive "intense" hurricanes, TSR said.
The long-term average for the Atlantic is for 10 storms to form during the hurricane season and for six of those to reach hurricane strength.
The United States emerged unscathed from the 2006 season after it spawned a below-average nine storms, of which five became hurricanes. Experts had universally -- and erroneously -- predicted 2006 would be a busy year for Atlantic storms.
None of the hurricanes hit the United States, bringing welcome relief to beleaguered residents of the U.S. Gulf Coast, where Katrina killed 1,500 people, swamped New Orleans and caused about $80 billion in damage the year before.
But TSR said current and projected climate signals indicate that Atlantic basin and U.S. landfalling hurricane activity will be 75 percent above the 1950-2006 average in 2007.
TSR had predicted in December that Atlantic basin and U.S. landfalling hurricane activity would be just 60 percent above average this year. It raised the projected activity level because of the sudden dissipation in February of last year's El Nino weather phenomenon.
An unusual warming of the eastern Pacific waters, El Nino events tend to suppress Atlantic storm activity.
Other experts, including hurricane forecast pioneer Dr. William Gray and his team at Colorado State University, have also warned that the 2007 hurricane season is likely to be busier-than-average.
The relative calm of last year's hurricane season, which forecasters had mistakenly predicted would be busy, came on the heels of a record 28 storms and 15 hurricanes in 2005 and only a slightly less furious season in 2004.
This could spell the end for a certain mayor's chocolate city.
Let's hope their "predictions" are as accurate as last years!
That's what you said last year -- eventually you will be correct....
It's Bush's fault for not signing Kyoto and not listening to Al Gore on global warming.
BUSH'S FAULT -- women and minorities to be hardest hit, and
WE'RE ALL DOOOOOOOOOOOMED!
that's what they said last year, and it was pretty much a snooze.
Didn't they say the same thing last year?
My husband's great uncle was an old timey General Practitioner who claimed he was 100% accurate in determining the sex of babies his patients expected. He told all mothers they would have a boy, but recorded girl in his notebook. If the baby was a boy mom and dad were pleased and all was well. If the baby was a girl, he showed them his notebbook and claimed they must have misunderstood what he originally told them. I have a feeling the hurricane predictors are trying the same scam, only difference is their predictions are spread abit further than their own notes.
Unless we do something about it. Now!
Subprimes and canes, oh my!
Yeah ,but if they keep saying it --sooner or later they will get it. Then they will say "we told ya so".
LOL... I'm excited about this "prediction"...
However, I'll wait for Gray's ... as well as his REAL expert evaluation of last year as well as its relation to this year.
I predict that the Little Red Spot on Jupiter will strengthen and bring doom upon New JupitOrleans ... due to an excess of methane spewing cows on that planet.
I've been thru 5 hurricanes here in Panama City, FL (Eloise 1975, Elena 1985, Kate 1985, Erin 1995, Opal 1995) plus getting slammed by some other close ones.
The big difference seems to be that we know how to handle hurricanes here. We pitch in, we clean it up, we get over it and we don't go around belly-aching for the next two years about how bad it was.
New Orleans needs to grow up and stop being dependent on the rest of the country.
Good question...
When they accurately predict the weather 10 days out, I'll begin to pay attention to them.
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