the recent hurricane spell

[TVMet]

Dr. William Gray and his research team at Colorado State Univ. have updated their hurricane season forecast on Oct. 1. In the text, Dr. Gray makes some interesting comments about the recent hurricane activity in Florida. Remember, Dr. Gray has been talking about the unusual lack of hurricane hits in FL for 20 years and has been saying "time is running out."

 

By the way, he forecast 3 named storms in October with 2 becoming hurricanes and no major hurricanes. He forecast almost no activity in November.

 

Here's his take on the last two months in FL...

 

7 It Could Have Been Worse

Florida's four destructive hurricanes fortunately came ashore along coastlines that were not very densely populated. Pensacola, FL was the largest Florida community feeling the direct brunt of one of these four damaging hurricanes. The coastal and inland areas around Punta Gorda-Port Charlotte (where Charley came ashore), and Stuart (where Frances and Jeanne came ashore) do not have large coastal populations. The three major Florida coastal population concentrations from Tarpon Springs to Sarasota, West Palm Beach to South Miami, and Daytona Beach to Melbourne (and inland to Orlando) were all removed from the direct brunt of these four hurricanes. Economic loss many times greater could have occurred if the center of any one of these four hurricanes had come into one of these more concentrated Florida population areas.

 

8 Florida's Unlucky 2004 August-September

The five named storms (4 hurricanes, 3 major hurricanes and 1 tropical storm) that have effected Florida over a 48 day period are unprecedented in terms of historical records going back 130 years, although they are well within the range of natural climate fluctuations. What makes August-September 2004 so special in regards to landfalling hurricanes in Florida is the unusual combination of high hurricane activity and very favorable surrounding hurricane steering currents that advected the hurricanes from the deep tropics across Florida.

 

9 Florida's Unusually Lucky Last 38 Years

It is important that Floridians view this terribly damaging landfall season from a longer period perspective. Overall Florida has been extremely fortunate in recent years. Between 1966-2003 (38 years) the Florida Peninsula has experienced the landfall of only one major hurricane (Andrew, 1992) (Fig. 13). But in this long major hurricane lull period since the mid-1960s, Florida's population and coastal development has exploded. Few of the new Floridians have experienced a major hurricane hit. Most Floridians were not prepared for this unusual onslaught of four devastating storms in such a short period of time. But old-timers who lived in Florida in the 1930s through the 1950s well remember that Florida used to be hit by many intense storms. Between 1928-1965 (41 years) the Florida Peninsula experienced 14 major hurricane landfalls (1 per 3 years).

 

For many years we have been discussing how lucky Florida had been with regards to its few recent landfalling major hurricanes. We said it was inevitable that this period of few major hurricane strikes would end and that the long period climatology would eventually reassert itself. There was no way, however, of knowing that the law of averages would try to catch up to its deficit so rapidly in one year.

 

 

 

 

10 Is Global Warming Involved?

Florida residents should not interpret the four damaging hurricane landfalls to their state in August-September to be related, in any way, to the much publicized human-induced global warming hypothesis. Although an unusual event (likely occurring about once every 100 years), these four strong landfall events are a rare combination of an above-average season of major hurricane activity together with unusually favorable broad-scale steering currents that drove mid-Atlantic tropical cyclones westward instead of allowing them to recurve. There would be little discussion of this year's hurricanes activity if these four major storms had not made U.S. landfall, which could have just as easily occurred

 

 

Although the Atlantic basin has been very active this year, as have eight of the last 10 Atlantic basin seasons, the other six global tropical storm basins which account for about 88 percent of the globe's approximately 80 named tropical cyclones per year have not shown a similar increase. In fact, global net tropical cyclone activity has actually shown a small decrease during the last 10 years. If global warming (natural or man-made) were the cause of the increased Atlantic basin activity, we should have seen an increase in the other storm basins as well. This has not occurred.

 

 

Atlantic basin major hurricane activity can increase or decrease during periods when the mean global surface temperature is warming or when it is cooling. During the period of the early 1970s to the mid-1990s, when the globe was warming, Atlantic basin major hurricane activity was below average. During the period of the mid-1940s to early 1970s there was a small net cooling of the global surface temperature, and Atlantic basin major hurricane activity was above average. We can explain these multi-decadal variations in Atlantic basin major hurricane activity as resulting from multi-decadal variations in the Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation (see our previous forecast discussions). Paleo climatology data has shown that such multi-decadal Atlantic thermohaline circulation changes have occurred many times in the past.

 

 

There has been a small global surface warming since the mid-1970s and when averaged over the last 100 years. We believe this global warming is due to a slowing down of the global ocean's sinking (or deep water formation) in the North and South polar regions. The globe undergoes warming when polar region deep-water formation is reduced as it was between the late 1960s to mid-1990s and on average over the last century. By contrast, during the periods between the mid-1940s and the early 1970s, there was enhanced polar deep-water formation, and the global mean surface temperature underwent a modest cooling.

 

 

We believe that the global mean surface temperature changes that have been observed over the last 30 years and over the last century are of mostly natural origin (ocean-forced) and likely not a result of any human influence. We do not attribute Florida's four landfalling hurricanes of the last two months to be related in any way to human influences.

 

 

 

 

11 Florida's Future Hurricane Seasons

Floridians should view this year's onslaught of hurricane activity as a rare anomaly. This year's landfalling hurricane activity does not by itself represent the beginning or the end of any cycle or trend for landfalling hurricanes. This year will have no bearing on what will occur in future years anymore than the great paucity of Florida landfalling major hurricanes between 1966-2003 had any bearing on this year's landfalling systems. The probability of having hurricane-spawned winds, rain, and storm surge at any spot in any year along the U.S. coastline is very low. We would not recommend that anyone move out of Florida or decide not to move to Florida solely because of the threat of hurricanes. Florida hurricanes must be accepted as one small negative of an otherwise pleasant climate.

 

 

12 Imbalance in Hurricane Research Funding

There is much yet to be known about hurricanes, especially in years like this one where forecast precursor signals did not fit the pattern of previously active seasons. These are natural threats to coastal residents of the U.S. that are not being studied as much as they should be. The amount of research directed to the better understanding and the prediction of hurricanes is miniscule in comparison to the massive research funding being directed to human-induced global warming research, which at best, remains a nebulous hypothesis. We need a better balance in federal research expenditures. The residents of the southeastern U.S. have not been well served by the federal government in its research allocation.

 

 

 

13 Discussion

The 2004 season has already seen more than twice the activity of an average tropical cyclone season. We expect the remainder of the 2004 hurricane season to be about as active as the typical after-September hurricane season.

 

 

This year is the eighth of the last ten seasons (since 1995) that have had distinctly above-average tropical cyclone activity. This season adds further evidence to our supposition that we are in a new era for Atlantic basin hurricane activity.

 

 

In terms of intense or major hurricane days (IHD), the last ten years have averaged 10.2 IHD per year while the 25-year period of 1970-1994 had an average of 2.26 IHD per year, or only one-quarter as many. There can be no question that from 1995 onward we have been in a new era for major hurricane activity.

 

You can read the whole report (if you want to get very technical) at:

http://hurricane.atmos.colostate.edu/forecasts/2004/oct2004/

[derf5585]

It Could Have Been Worse

 

Why is that phrase always used?

They never say "It could have been better"

Or "It was as bad as it could have been"

[Ms Belvedere]

Why is that phrase always used?

They never say "It could have been better"

Or "It was as bad as it could have been"

 

 

It's an attention grabber. When Ivan was headed into Alabama and , CNN kept flashing a script that said "FLEEING THE STORM". Why "Fleeing"? It's such an emotional word, they were evacuating and probably upset. Those words on the screen didn't help anyone but made you stop to see what they were broadcasting.