I understand from folks who have reason to know that the mild winter has lead to some very warm ocean temperatures in the Gulf. They are apparently correct as it appears that most of the Gulf is now in the 80 F and above range. This seems high given it only mid-May.
ssec.wisc.edu
As I appreciate it, these temperatures are not reached until June, but I may be off a critical degree or so. Thus, take this with a bit of salt and do your own looking.
In any event, a major local corporation has planned for five evacuations this season.
We will have some very large storms this year should they make it into the Gulf, as many do. I hope the prediction by Gray that only a few will actually make it into the Gulf is a correct one, though he calls for a 47% chance that at least one major, i.e., category 3-5, storm will make landfall on the Gulf Coast.
tropical.atmos.colostate.edu
Time to batten down the hatches, but he does have this to say which should of interest:
No credible observational evidence is available or likely will be available in the next few decades which will be able to directly associate global surface temperature change to changes in global hurricane frequency and intensity.
Most Southeast coastal residents probably do not know how fortunate they had been in the prior 38-year period (1966-2003) leading up to 2004-2005 when there were only 17 major hurricanes (0.45/year) that crossed the U.S. coastline. In the prior 40-year period of 1926-1965, there were 36 major hurricanes (0.90/year or twice as many) that made U.S. landfall. It is understandable that coastal residents were not prepared for the great upsurge in landfalling major hurricanes in 2004-2005.
We should interpret the last two years of unusually large numbers of U.S. landfalling hurricanes as natural but very low probability years. During 1966-2003, U.S. hurricane landfall numbers were substantially below the long-term average. In the last two seasons, they have been much above the long-term average. Although the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons have had an unusually high number of major landfall events, the overall Atlantic basin hurricane activity has not been much more active than five of the recent hurricane seasons since 1995 (e.g., 1995-1996, 1998-1999, 2003). What has made the 2004-2005 seasons so unusually destructive is the higher percent of major hurricanes which moved over the U.S. coastline. These landfall events were not primarily a function of the overall Atlantic basin net major hurricane numbers, but rather of the favorable broad-scale Atlantic upper-air steering currents which were present the last two seasons. It was these favorable Atlantic steering currents which caused so many of the major hurricanes which formed to come ashore.
It is rare to have two consecutive years with such a strong simultaneous combination of high amounts of major hurricane activity together with especially favorable steering flow currents. The historical records and the laws of statistics indicate that the probability of seeing another two consecutive hurricane season like 2004-2005 is very low. Even though we expect to see the current active period of Atlantic major hurricane activity to continue for another 15-20 years, it is statistically unlikely that the coming 2006 and 2007 hurricane seasons, or the seasons which follow, will have the number of major hurricane U.S. landfall events as we have seen in 2004-2005. |
