PSU Atlantic hurricane season forecast: 16 named storms
Expect a busy Atlantic hurricane season this year, with sixteen named storms, say Pennsylvania State University (PSU) hurricane scientists Michael Mann and Michael Kozar. Their annual Atlantic hurricane season forecast issued on May 16 calls for 12 - 20 named storms this season, which starts June 1 and runs until November 30. An average season has 10 - 11 named storms. Their prediction was made using statistics of how past hurricane seasons have behaved in response to sea surface temperatures (SSTs), the El Niño/La Niña oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and other factors. This year's forecast is primarily based on three factors:
1) The current above-average sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic Main Development Region (MDR) for hurricanes, from Central America to the coast of Africa between 10°C and 20°C North latitude, will continue into the main part of hurricane season;
2) The fading La Niña event in the Eastern Pacific Ocean will be replaced by neutral El Niño/La Niña conditions;
3) The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) will be near average during hurricane season.
Figure 1. Hurricane Igor of 2010 as seen from the International Space Station.
The PSU team will also be making a new experimental forecast based not on the absolute MDR sea surface temperatures, but on difference between the MDR SST and ocean temperatures over the rest of the globe's tropical oceans. Some research has suggested that Atlantic hurricane activity is greater when this relative difference in SSTs is high, not necessarily when the absolute MDR SST is high (in other words, if all the world's tropical oceans have record high SSTs, we wouldn't get an unusually active Atlantic hurricane season, even with record warm SSTs in the Atlantic.) This new experimental forecast is predicting higher activity: 19 named storms in the Atlantic this year.
The PSU team has been making Atlantic hurricane season forecasts since 2007, and these predictions have done pretty well:
2007 prediction: 15 Actual: 15
2009 prediction: 12.5 Actual: 9
2010 prediction: 23 Actual: 19
NOAA will be issuing their annual pre-season Atlantic hurricane season forecast at 11:30am on Thursday, and I'll make a post on that Thursday afternoon. Tropical Storm Risk, Inc. (TSR) issues their pre-season forecast on May 24, and Colorado State University issues theirs on June 1.
My next post on the Mississippi flood will be on Friday.
Links:
PSU 2011 Atlantic hurricane season forecast issued on May 16.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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We all get hyped up for the June 1st day and the start of the season. Yet many years nothing happens in June and depression sets in on the blog.
Please take note: this post specifies North Carolina...Well done!!!
Link
Oh wow, 0.01 forecasted the next 5 days for me!! Wait, i'm right on the border of light green and white, so I wont hold my breathe ;-)
That's another kind of tropical depression.
"seasons a bust" if no named storm after June 2nd. This year i've heard "good chance at pre-season mischief!!!". "Have you seen the caribbean on the GFS at day 9, wow!!!!". "Dang look at those SST's in the Gulf, they are boiling hot already!!!". Me personally, cannot wait for "look its pumping the ridge!" LOL.
Good morning....
Irony: flood conditions in a area of drought.
Just an observation this morning.
Yea, pathetic, I don't know what were gonna do.
Living in FL, neutral years always leave me a little more concerned. Neutral years, on average, produce the most landfalls for our state due to the AB high being positioned farther west. This typically will set the mean trough position right up through the Great Lakes region. Not sure about other areas in the deep south but logic would tell you the chances are equally increased.
Any loop current eddy yet?
There appears to be a significant decrease in hurricane landfalls during the neutral phase along the East Coast whereas compared to Florida. This would suggest that there is a dominant flow pattern during neutral years that tends to steer hurricanes toward Florida.
I don't think so but, do you really need one with those temps, lol.
Speaking of the USA obviously, no disrespect to our friends to the south.
4 till the Fla. Rainy Season start
Oh, you know that I'm aware of such things, Press :)
Hey P451. Posted occasionally, but like a lot, come out of the woodwork as soon as summer rolls around (unless there's been a significant event somewhere in the winter over here, which there wasn't).
Main story for here is that is much drier than it should be. Farmers (some anyway, fruit farmers are enjoying the above average heat) beginning to get a little worried.
And love the graphic!
Great figure, interesting to see all the landfalls along the NE Gulf and Bahamas.
Enjoy your ban...but dangit...that was worth it!! LOL!! But seriously...I'm having a July 4th cookout in the Palm Beach area...anyone know what the 1104 hr run of the models looks like and how reliable they are? ;-)
omg what I great graphic...P451
The pic of the possum walking...he just looks angry.
*Fraka, fraka humans and their flood diversions. I'm gonna find out who authorized this. I hate traveling in the daylight.*
Yeah, it's pretty clear the Bahamas get plastered during a neutral phase. I am rather confident this will be a pretty status quo neutral event, assuming no big swing to El Nino. Unlike years past with quick and drastic ENSO swings this recent event has been fairly normal.
Brett Duke, The Times-Picayune
Tamar Taylor and her daughter, Willa Richards, 11, look through some of the wood that is piling up against an old pier along the Mississippi River in Kenner's Rivertown on Wednesday.
Rising Mississippi River pushing debris downstream
Published: Wednesday, May 18, 2011, 9:30 PM
Nothing special about that, since those are both common origins for all types of tropical cyclones.
Found this link on loop eddy history/real time/ historical info...cool.
The eastern one isn't fully split off yet. It is of more concern, since it already has more heat content in it.
Sure but your missing one thing. The lack of Cape Verde storms.
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