NOAA: EXPECT BUSY ATLANTIC HURRICANE SEASON

Scientists say conditions ripe for 14 to 21 storms

The siege of active Atlantic hurricane seasons will continue for yet another year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted last week.

In its annual seasonal outlook Tuesday, the agency called for the seventh straight above normal Atlantic season with 14 to 21 named storms — compared to 14 in an average year, six to 10 hurricanes, and three to six major hurricanes, rated Category 3 or higher.

Major hurricanes are of particular concern as they have a tendency to rapidly intensify, leaving coastal residents little time to prepare. These major storms are responsible for the overwhelming majority of damage due to wind and storm surge.

Scientists have observed an increase in rapidly intensome sifying hurricanes over the past few decades, linked to warming ocean waters from human-caused climate change.

NOAA’S outlook for another busy season follows a devastating period of heightened hurricane activity in the Atlantic. The 2021 season produced 21 named storms, third-most on record, exhausting all of the names of the National Hurricane Center’s conventional naming list. In 2020, a record-breaking 30 named storms formed. The two seasons combined produced the most storms making landfalls on record in the United States.

The U.S. saw more Category 4 and 5 hurricane landfalls from 2017 to 2021 than from 1963 to 2016.

Every year since 2016 has generated above-average activity in the Atlantic, with five Category 5 storms roaming the basin over that period. A seemingly relentless parade of major hurricanes — including Harvey, Irma, Michael, Laura, Zeta and Ida — lashed the beleaguered Gulf Coast during the sixyear window.

The effects of Hurricane Ida last year were so severe — from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast — that the World Meteorological Organization retired it from the rotating list of hurricane names. The storm caused 96 deaths as it tracked from Louisiana to Connecticut and was blamed for $75 billion of damage, the fifth-costliest hurricane on record in the United States.

NOAA’S outlook echoes those made by several research institutions and private companies. Colorado State University, for example, is predicting 19 named storms, with a 71 percent likelihood that the U.S. will be hit by a major hurricane. Similarly, Accuweather, the private forecast company based in State College, Pa., is calling for 16 to 20 named storms.

Many indicators point toward the high probability of a busy season. The position of several key atmospheric features are noteworthy, and the ocean appears primed to support significant storms.

Among the elements being monitored are:

Sea surface temperatures. Hurricanes thrive when water temperatures reach the lower to mid-80s. Hurricanes are heat engines, extracting thermal energy from “oceanic heat content.” A greater, deeper reservoir of exceptionally mild ocean water translates to more fuel to generate or sustain a hurricane. Water temperatures throughout the entire Gulf of Mexico and western Atlantic are running 1 to 3 degrees above average.

La Niña. La Niña is a cooling of sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific. It sets in motion a chain-reaction process that favors increased Atlantic hurricane activity. Specifically, it cools the air over that relative temperature minimum in the eastern Pacific, spurring sinking motion there. That makes it easier for air over the Atlantic to rise into big storms.