NC researchers make predictions for 2023 hurricane season
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Climate researchers at North Carolina State University predict the upcoming hurricane season could produce more than a dozen storms.
They estimate there will be 11 to 15 named storms in the Atlantic basin, which covers the entire Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, according to their 2023 Atlantic hurricane season prediction models.
There were 17 storms in 2022, just as NC state researchers predicted last year, according to the hurricane database from the North Carolina State Climate Office. But this year, they’re not expecting the hurricane season to be as active.
“The number of named storms predicted is at the higher end of the long-term averages, but at the lower end of more recent 30-year averages,” according to Lian Xie, professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences at NC State.
The long-term (from 1951 to 2022) average of named storms is 11, and the more recent average (from 1991 to 2020) is 14. Of the predicted storms for this year, six to eight may grow strong enough to become hurricanes, and two to three could become major hurricanes, researchers explained.
The researchers said their data findings also indicate that there’s a chance of three to five named storms forming in the Gulf of Mexico, with one to three becoming hurricanes, and up to one becoming a major hurricane.
This photo taken during a helicopter tour on Aug. 30, 2011, shows a section of Highway 12 at the edge of Rodanthe that was destroyed by Hurricane Irene on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. any corrective process should it become necessary or desired by impacted parties.”
Disciplinary action
According to a website for his former law practice, Morris graduated in the top 10% of his class at Regent University School of Law in 2012 and was licensed to practice law in Virginia that same year. He worked as a public defender in Portsmouth for a couple years before opening his own practice in Virginia Beach, focusing mostly on criminal defense, DUI and traffic cases, the website said.
Among the best known cases he handled as a defense attorney was one involving hired hitman Richard Stoner. Stoner was contracted to kill a Virginia Beach woman in 2004 but ended up also killing her 7-year-old son and seriously wounding her brother before setting their family’s home on fire. The case remained cold until 2018.
Morris’ first known disciplinary incident occurred in March 2022. He was ordered to appear at a show cause hearing in Virginia Beach Circuit Court after courthouse security officers found a gun in his briefcase on two separate occasions, according to bar documents. Morris told Circuit Judge Les Lilley both incidents were accidents and Lilley found him in civil contempt, the documents said. The documents didn’t indicate whether a fine or other punishment was issued.
That same month, his law license was suspended for a week for failing to comply with a requirement to undergo continuing legal education.
Also in March 2022, Virginia Beach Circuit Judge Stephen Mahan banned Morris from representing clients in criminal cases there after he showed up hours late to a court hearing and made troubling statements about the reason for his tardiness and mistakes he had made in his client’s case.
Morris told Mahan he’d slept through his alarm and that it wasn’t the first time it had happened, according to bar documents. He said he was concerned he had a “medical issue” or was “just bordering on being unfit to be an attorney.” As for the case he was supposed to be in court for that day, Morris told Mahan he needed to withdraw from it because he was “unaware of pertinent statutes and law” and had failed to inform his client about important matters in the case.
The incident with the text messages occurred last August and involved a former client Morris suspected of filing a complaint against him to the state bar.
In the often rambling and sometimes profanity-filled messages sent over a two-day period, Morris called the man a “snitch” who “deserved death” and threatened to “hunt” him down, the bar documents said. He warned the man that he had “represented a lot of really bad people over the past decade” who “still owe me favors” and that he wasn’t “a lawyer anymore” but “a demon on a war path.”
Morris also made threatening statements in the text exchange against local attorneys Jarrett McCormack and Peter Decker, from whom the former client had sought legal advice. Although sending texts that threaten bodily harm or death is a felony in Virginia, the former client didn’t seek charges against Morris, according to the bar documents.
A ‘second chance’
Morris was interviewed by an investigator for the Virginia State Bar on Oct. 7 and admitted to sending the texts, the documents said. He told the investigator the client had threatened him and his family first and that he “had to protect his family.” Morris also told the investigator he was under a great deal of stress in his personal life and business at the time, and that his law practice was falling apart because clients weren’t paying him.
“I was a completely different person then, as compared to now,” Morris is quoted as saying in the documents.
“Morris explained he was given a second chance at the Portsmouth CWA office, he is happy there, he feels he is doing a good job there, and he is attempting to turn his life around,” the document says.
Morales wrote in her letter to the bar that Morris had been doing exceptional work and was well-liked by his colleagues. He started off handling DUI and misdemeanor cases and moved on to more serious felony cases, she wrote. She described him as knowledgeable, professional, respectful and hard-working.
“Mr. Morris has not missed a beat during this transition and continues to produce at the high level I have come to expect from him,” Morales wrote. “I acknowledge that Mr. Morris made some mistakes towards the end of his career in private practice. He has always been remorseful and taken responsibility for those mistakes when speaking with me. Mr. Morris’ actions, since he has been employed in this office, have shown that he has taken the necessary steps to ensure those mistakes will not be repeated.”
Jane Harper, jane.harper @pilotonline.com