NOAA hurricane forecast a record
Pessimistic report predicts as many as 25 storms heading into peak of season
The federal government issued a record-setting new forecast for hurricane season Thursday, predicting as many as 25 storms — more than the agency has ever forecast.
The prediction from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calls for:
• 19 to 25 named storms, which means tropical storms and hurricanes. The preseason forecast had called for 13 to 19.
• 7 to 11 to hurricanes, up from 6 to 10 in the previous forecast.
• 3 to 6 major major hurricanes, which have wind speeds of at least 111 mph, the same number of these storms in the previous forecast.
“This year, we expect more, stronger, and longerlived storms than average,” said Gerry Bell, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.
An average season produces 12 named storms, which means wind speeds of at least 39 mph, including six hurricanes, of which three are major. This season has already produced two hurricanes and is on track to become one of the most active in recorded history, an unwelcome development at a time of unprecedented health and economic challenges.
“We’ve never forecast up to 25 named storms,” Bell said in a telephone news conference Thursday morning. “So this is the first time.”
While 25 is the greatest number of storms the agency has ever forecast, the busiest season in history brought 28 named and unnamed storms in 2005.
NOAA had predicted up to 21 storms that year.
Conditions now are not more conducive to hurricanes than they turned out to be in 2005, which brought us Hurricane Wilma and Hurricane Katrina, Bell said.
“2005 was more conducive to more hurricanes than what we’re seeing now,” Bell said. “That’s why we’re not predicting a record hurricane season at this time.”
Based on the number of storms produced so far this season, the NOAA forecast means we’re due for another 10 to 16 named storms by the time the season officially ends Nov. 30. The sheer number of storms forecast raises the possibility that National Hurricane Center will run out of names, which end this year with Wilfred, and have to resort to the use of Greek letters, a development that
last happened in 2005.
The NOAA forecast was close to a prediction issued this week by Colorado State University, which called for 12 hurricanes, up from an earlier prediction of nine.
NOAA issues a forecast before the June 1 start of the season and before the peak, a period that runs from mid-August through October. The peak, considered a “season within a season,” produces the majority of hurricanes and the vast majority of major hurricanes.
During this period, which tops out around Sept. 10, patches of stormy weather regularly roll off the African coast and drift across the Atlantic, some dissipating, others forming tropical storms and hurricanes.
Two major factors account for the abundance of hurricanes during this period: Warm ocean temperatures and a reduction in wind shear, the high-level changes in wind direction
that can tear up systems of stormy weather before they can form hurricanes. Both these factors are expected to be especially favorable for the production of tropical storms and hurricanes this year.
Another factor may be the presence of a climate phenomenon called La Niña. The opposite of the better-known El Niño, this is a cooling of the eastern Pacific Ocean that tends to suppress wind shear over the Atlantic, making it easier for hurricanes to form without interference.
Climate change is thought to exert a significant impact on hurricanes, with higher sea levels leading to worse coastal flooding and warm oceans producing stronger, wetter storms. Although Bell said these factors are real and concerning, he said climate change is less significant than other influences on the year-to-year fluctuations in hurricane activity. More important, he said, is a decades-long cycle in high and low hurricane activity called the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation. We’ve been in an active cycle since 1995, with conditions of warm water and favorable wind conditions that tend to support the formation of hurricanes.
The 2020 season is already off at a record-setting pace, having already produced nine named storms, including two hurricanes. The season so far is in line with the consensus of early forecasts, which said to expect a busy season.
There is currently no major storm activity over the Atlantic basin. The remnants of Hurricane Isaias were expected to dissipate Thursday over Canada. Forecasters had been watching a small area of stormy weather southwest of Bermuda, but it faded away Thursday afternoon.