"Would you believe, 15 storms and fart in a whirlwind?"
Posted on 08/09/2007 9:09:12 AM PDT by libertarianPA
MIAMI - Government forecasters minimally reduced their prediction for the Atlantic hurricane season Thursday, but said that up to nine hurricanes and up to 16 tropical storms are expected to form, still a busier-than-average season.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration maintained its estimate that three to five of the hurricanes will be major storms of Category 3 strength or stronger. The original report forecast up to 17 tropical storms, with up to 10 becoming hurricanes.
Despite the slight reductions and a harmless season so far, NOAA said atmospheric and oceanic conditions mean that the season likely will be more active than normal. On average, there are 10 named Atlantic storms and six hurricanes, three of them major.
"The early season activity really doesn't reflect what's going to happen in the peak of the season," said Gerry Bell, the lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA. "The fact that there's been no hurricanes so far means absolutely nothing."
Federal forecasters' move Thursday follows that of Colorado State University hurricane researcher William Gray, who slightly lowered his forecast last week.
Gray's initial projection called for 17 named storms and nine hurricanes, five of them intense. He revised it to 15 named storms and eight hurricanes, four of them intense.
After the battering by storms Katrina and Rita in 2005, there were widespread fears last summer of another powerful storm striking. But the unexpected development of El Nino — the periodic warming of Pacific Ocean waters that affects wind patterns and tends to result in fewer Atlantic storms — helped dampen conditions.
No destructive storms hit the U.S. last year, but forecasters warned this year that El Nino is over, which could prompt conditions that encourage the development of additional storms.
Bell conceded that forecasters overestimated the amount of tropical activity last year, but indicated he was more confident this season.
"The reason was that we failed to forecast the rapidly developing El Nino," he said. "This year there's no chance of an El Nino."
August typically marks the start of the most frenetic months of Atlantic weather.
Last year, there were 10 tropical storms in the Atlantic and just two made landfall in the United States.
Jetstream trough more south than usual didn’t hurt either.
Its the Live Earth Concert viewed by 2 billion people!!
“And tomorrows weather will be...?????????????!
Weather Channel deeply saddened.
Is Jim Cantore drawing unemployment yet?
I can look in my Almanac and create an average based on a cyclical curve.
Exactly, why do they have to do this? Do they have to scare the living hell out of us here in New Orleans every year now and forever since Katrina? OK we need a little notice to get out of New Orleans - we do not need to be reminded every year that we may be destroyed!!! Not only that, our anxiety level goes through the roof just so they can keep their freak'n jobs!
IMO, the ones the hurricane center have named so far this year didn’t even deserve recognition. But they’ve got to keep those numbers up to stay relevant, so you name storms that aren’t really storms.
“I can look in my Almanac and create an average based on a cyclical curve.”
Actually, they’ve employed a pretty cagy forecasting system for this year vs given that they were so far off the mark last year. This year they’re lowering the storm threat numbers a little every week as time goes by because there are no storms brewing. The result will be, presto, by the time hurricane season ends, they’ll be bragging that their forecast for 2007 was right on target.
"Would you believe, 15 storms and fart in a whirlwind?"
Sort of like Duke and Duke from the movie Trading Places..."Turn those machines back on!"
Advertisers are probably dropping like flies...cutting into their bottom line. For all the Gator fans and others in FLA./southeast, hope it stays that way.
hmmm, tropical storm RaCoCo, has a nice ring to it...
Apparently Gorebal Warning stopped in 1998.
Silly. It means that almost 2 1/2 months into hurricane season we haven't had a single hurricane.
Again? Didn't they just revise the forecast for the season a couple weeks ago? Is this the revision of the revision?
We're a week into August and they're STILL expecting a busier than average season? The first three named fizzled with hardly a blink. When I saw the third one, I wondered what happened to one and two as I never even heard about them.
My husband and I have been noticing that the jet stream is not being shown on the FNC weather segments and it is not indicated on our local weather or on weather.com for our area.
Guess that dust cloud over Africa and El Nino has them confused.
Same conditions that existed last year.
I am optimistic,we won’t have any hurricanes this year.
Course the first known tornado in Brooklyn is scary.
does anyone have a jet stream graphic that explains the current situation?
seems the UPtick was just to sell more advertising for home improvement stores.
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