Hurricane Update: Slower Season Predicted, but U.S. "Not Off the Hook"

Willie Drye
for National Geographic News

August 8, 2006

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
lowered its forecast this morning for the 2006 hurricane season,
predicting three or four major hurricanes instead of the four to six
originally forecast.

But federal meteorologists think the remainder of the season will still be busy.

NOAA forecasters expect that 12 to 15 named tropical storms will form in the Atlantic Basin, which includes the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Seven to nine of those storms will evolve into hurricanes with winds of at least 74 miles (119 kilometers) an hour, the forecasters say.

In May NOAA predicted that 13 to 16 tropical storms would spawn eight to ten hurricanes and four to six major hurricanes.

An average season produces 11 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 2 major hurricanes. Major hurricanes are storms with winds of at least 111 miles (178 kilometers) an hour.

NOAA follows Colorado State University's forecast team in lowering its hurricane prediction for 2006.

(Read "Hurricane Forecast Revised Downward" [August 3, 2006].)

Last week CSU forecasters predicted that three major hurricanes would form before the season ends November 30.

As of last week only three named storms had formed in the Atlantic Basin since June 1. None of them developed into hurricanes.

NOAA officials warned, however, that the slow start of the 2006 season is not an indication that the remainder of the summer would be quiet.

"This year's three named storms may pale in comparison to the record nine storms that formed through early August 2005, but conditions will be favorable for above-normal activity for the rest of this season—so we are not off the hook by any means," NOAA administrator Conrad C. Lautenbacher said in a prepared statement.

Hurricane-Forming Factors Still at Work

NOAA researchers said a combination of factors may contribute to an active 2006 season.

The main factors are upper-level winds and atmospheric pressure, along with continuing warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures.

All of these factors have been in place since 1995, when meteorologists think a prolonged cycle of active hurricane seasons started.

Researchers think hurricane seasons alternate in cycles of active and less active seasons, with each cycle lasting 20 years or longer.

(Read a National Geographic magazine feature on the current cycle of killer hurricanes.)

The 2004 and 2005 seasons were especially punishing for Florida and the Gulf Coast, where a parade of very powerful hurricanes made landfall.

(See complete coverage of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita.)

NOAA's seasonal forecasts do not include predictions of what parts of the country are most likely to be hit by storms.

But some meteorologists, including AccuWeather forecaster Joe Bastardi, think conditions are right for the U.S. East Coast to take a hit from a major hurricane this year.

(Read "Major Hurricane Threat Seen for Northeast U.S., Experts Warn" [March 28, 2006].)

"The total number means nothing to me," Bastardi said.

"Hurricane Donna (in 1960) had three major landfalls. Hurricane Andrew (in 1992) and Hurricane Betsy (1956) each had several landfalls."

Bastardi thinks current weather patterns closely resemble those of the 1930s to the 1950s, a time marked by harsh weather events such as powerful hurricanes, droughts, and dust storms.

"This has happened before," he said. "It was a time of climatic hardship in the U.S. That's the way it was then, and the way it is now."

Willie Drye is the author of Storm of the Century: the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, published by National Geographic Books.

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