The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will increase the warning time it gives in advance of hurricanes and tropical storms beginning with the onset of this year’s hurricane season – adding 12 hours to each.
That announcement this week was good news to Noel Smith, deputy director of operations for the V.I. Territorial Emergency Management Agency, who said Friday that anything that gives the territory more time to prepare is good.
“We have a plan that’s based on a timeline,” he explained. “There’s something we do within each hour of that time frame. This gives us more breathing room to prepare. We really appreciate the breathing room.”
That breathing room includes extra time for federal emergency help to plan for deploying from the mainland in case of disaster.
Virgin Islanders may cross their fingers each hurricane season, hoping that storms don’t hit, but crossing fingers isn’t a plan, Smith noted.
“It’s better to be over-prepared than under-prepared. We can always downgrade the warning as time gets closer, but it’s harder to upgrade.”
NOAA announced the new system Monday. Starting June 1, NOAA’s National Hurricane Center in Miami will issue watches and warnings for tropical storms and hurricanes along threatened areas 12 hours earlier than in previous years. According to NHC experts, advancements in track forecasts are making it possible for forecasters to provide greater lead time.
Tropical storm watches will be issued when tropical storm conditions are possible along the coast within 48 hours. Tropical storm warnings will be issued when those conditions are expected within 36 hours.
Similarly, hurricane watches and warnings will generally be timed to provide 48 and 36 hours notice, respectively, before the onset of tropical storm force winds.
“With increases in population and infrastructure along vulnerable U.S. coastlines, emergency managers need more lead time to make life-saving decisions regarding evacuations,” said Bill Read, director of NOAA’s National Hurricane Center.
These changes will go into effect for the 2010 hurricane season, which begins on May 15 in the Eastern Pacific and on June 1 for the Atlantic Basin.
That additional time will also allow people preparing for the storm – securing oil rig platforms, getting food and water stockpiled, boarding windows, etc., – enough time to finish preparations and get to safe shelter.
Hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, with the peak in August and September.
While the 2009 season was an unusually quiet one, with no named storms hitting the territory and only two weak systems making landfall on the U.S. mainland, forecasters Phil Klotzbach and William Gray of Colorado State University last fall predicted a more active season in 2010. They anticipate that 11 to 16 named storms will form, six to eight of them hurricanes and three to five of those reaching major status.
Should those storms form in the Atlantic Basin this year, these are the names the meteorological community has chosen to identify them: Alex , Bonnie, Colin, Danielle, Earl, Fiona, Gaston, Hermine, Igor, Julia, Karl, Lisa, Matthew, Nicole, Otto, Paula, Richard, Shary, Tomas, Virginie and Walter.
