Another Horrid Hurricane Season Brewing

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/30208/story.htm

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MIAMI - Like last year, the coming Atlantic hurricane season will be fiercer than normal, with a heightened probability of a major hurricane making landfall in the United States, a noted forecaster said on Friday.
Following one of the most destructive hurricane seasons recorded, Colorado State University professor William Gray said 2005 would see 13 named storms, of which seven would turn into hurricanes. He predicted three major hurricanes with winds exceeding 111 mph (180 kph).

The long-term average for the Atlantic basin is 9.6 named storms and 5.9 hurricanes, of which 2.3 are intense hurricanes, per season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.

"All of the information we have collected and analyzed through March indicates that the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season will be an active one," Gray said in a statement.

"We anticipate tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic basin in 2005 will be about 135 percent of the long-term average. We also estimate the probability of US major hurricane landfall to be about 140 percent of average."

The 2004 hurricane season spawned 15 tropical storms, of which nine developed into hurricanes.

Four of those slammed into Florida in a six-week period, causing total damages of around $45 billion, which far exceeded the $25 billion cost of Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Fifty-seven people were directly killed by the storms in the United States, and another 152 died from indirect causes -- a toll that paled in comparison to the 3,000 drowned or buried under mud after Tropical Storm Jeanne swept over Haiti.

Other Caribbean islands like Jamaica, Grenada and the Cayman Islands were also badly hit last year and the Caribbean as a whole suffered in excess of $3 billion in damages.

Gray and Philip Klotzbach, an atmospheric research scientist at Colorado State University, said they might increase their predictions for the number of storms in 2005 if weather conditions continued to point to a lack of significant El Nino conditions in the Pacific this year.

The El Nino weather phenomenon produces a distinct warming of Pacific waters and tends to suppress storm activity in the Atlantic.

"If the next few months verify our beliefs about the lack of significant El Nino conditions, it is likely that we will be raising our forecast numbers in our coming May 31 and Aug. 5 forecast updates," Klotzbach said.

In December, Gray's team published an initial prediction for 11 tropical storms and hurricanes in 2005.

US hurricane experts say the number of hurricanes appears to increase and decrease in multiyear cycles and the Atlantic may have entered a 30- to 40-year period of greater storm activity after several decades of relative calm.

Unlike weather researchers elsewhere, US experts reject suggestions that the heightened storm activity could be due to global warming, rising global temperatures that many scientists say are caused in part by industrial pollution.


Story Date: 4/4/2005