It's Getting Close to Hurricane Time

This Monday morning at 11 Eastern, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is going to be releasing its first seasonal prediction for Atlantic hurricane activity for 2006. If the prediction is anything like the one that William Gray and Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University have already released, then NOAA will be calling for another very active season. That will in turn generate quite a lot of chatter (and worry), and I'll do my best to follow whatever play-by-play there is. Of course, it's going to be tricky because tomorrow I have to travel to New York for an evolution talk...but I will do the best I can. More generally, as we move into hurricane season starting June 1, I plan on blogging the heck out of it, so stand by....

P.S.: Another group, the UK team of Drs. Mark Saunders and Adam Lea at the University College-London, are also forecasting a very active Atlantic hurricane season....So I guess it would be kinda surprising if the NOAA forecast was way out of line with that of the Gray group and the Saunders group....

P.P.S.: When will the first storm show up? Who the hell knows, but the first storm of last year was Tropical Storm Arlene, which was named on June 9....

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I'm still looking forward to your report on the Monterey conference.

By Steve Bloom (not verified) on 21 May 2006 #permalink

Doesn't the NOAA forecast have to be cleared by a White House political officer (who used to work for Exxon-Mobil and will again someday soon)?

In that case we have nothing to fear. There won't be an active hurricane season or if there is the the flooding will be good for us.

Really.

By Jim Ramsey (not verified) on 22 May 2006 #permalink

Chris, I did see the Science piece, plus other stuff including a read through the abstracts. What I'm especially curious to know about is your impression of where the "silent majority" of TC researchers stand on the issue of detectability of current AGW influence (assuming you had time to get some sense of that). Notwithstanding RP Jr.'s efforts to present things otherwise, media coverage seems to be trending toward representation of the Gray/Mayfield/Landsea camp as an increasingly isolated minority. I can't seem to get an image of the Little Big Horn out of my head, with RP Jr. in the Dustin Hoffman role from "Little Big Man."

For the rest, I'll happily await your book. Just out of curiosity, how will publication be timed relative to the current season? Tricky business, that.

By Steve Bloom (not verified) on 22 May 2006 #permalink

Et voila: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/outlooks/hurricane.shtml .

They seem to have low-balled it. Unsurprisingly, the discussion features our old friend the "multi-decadal signal," backed by a citation to Bell & Chelliah (2006) even though Chelliah at least has publicly denied that the paper can be used to draw such a conclusion. There is no reference whatsoever to AGW.

For some detailed discussion of B&C (2006), see http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/03/reactions-to-tigh… , and in particular Chelliah's comment 118.

By Steve Bloom (not verified) on 22 May 2006 #permalink

I have it on good authority that any blame on an unusually heay storm season lies solely with God Almighty, who is ticked about gays getting married, journalists publishing leaked information, and making fun of Pat Robertson.

Now that that's settled we can get back to talking about last night's American Idol.

And here it is.
NOAA's forecast is quite similar to Klotzbach's, but forecasting slightly fewer tropical storms. This is highly unusual; prior to 2005, there had never been more than two hyperactive seasons in a row. Now all forecasters are forecasting a 4th consecutive hyperactive season.

Also note NOAA's mention that the 1995-2005 period has averaged 15 tropical storms per year. There is no previous 11-year period averaging more than 11 storms per year (My own calculation based on best track data). Whatever role AGW has played in this, there is the very real possibility the Atlantic will decide the upcoming election with an October surprise.