This winter’s unusually warm water will lead to an above-average 2010 hurricane season, with a 58 percent chance of a major hurricane tracking into the Caribbean.
That’s according to Colorado State University storm forecasters Phil Klotzbach and William Gray, whose pre-season forecast on Wednesday predicted 15 named storms for the Atlantic basin.
They expect eight to be hurricanes and four to develop into major hurricanes with sustained winds of 111 mph or greater. Hurricane season starts June 1 and runs through Nov. 30.
The Colorado State team also thinks dissipating El Nino conditions will lead to increased hurricane activity.
"We expect current moderate El Nino conditions to transition to neutral conditions by this year’s hurricane season," Klotzbach said. "The dissipating El Nino, along with the expected anomalously warm Atlantic ocean sea surface temperatures, will lead to favorable dynamic and thermodynamic conditions for hurricane formation and intensification."
Long-term averages stand at 9.6 named storms, 5.9 hurricanes and 2.3 major hurricanes per year.
According to the Colorado State team’s press release, "precursor" factors to this year have a number of similarities to early April conditions that preceded the hurricane years of 1958, 1966, 1969, 1998 and 2005.
All five of these seasons had above-average activity, especially the seasons of 1969, 1998 and 2005.
Klotzbach and Gray predict the 2010 season will have slightly less activity than the average of these five earlier years.
The team predicts tropical cyclone activity in 2010 will be 160 percent of the average season. By comparison, 2009 witnessed tropical cyclone activity that was about 70 percent of the average season.
They put the chances of a hurricane hitting the U.S. coastline at 69 percent. The long-term average stands at 52 percent.
The 2010 forecast marks 27 years of hurricane forecasting at Colorado State. The hurricane forecast team makes its predictions based on 58 years of historical data.
"While patterns may change before the start of hurricane season, we believe current conditions warrant concern for an above-average season," Gray said.
The team began using a new early April statistical model in 2008.
"We have found that using two late-winter predictors and our early December hindcast, we can obtain early April predictions that show considerable hindcast skill over the period from 1950 to 2007," Klotzbach said. "This new forecast model also provided a very accurate prediction over the past few seasons."
Probabilities of tropical storm-force, hurricane-force and major hurricane-force winds occurring at all islands in the Caribbean, countries in Central America and at specific locations along the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts within a variety of time periods are listed on the forecast team’s Landfall Probability web site. The site also provides U.S. landfall probabilities for 11 regions and 205 individual counties along the U.S. coastline from Brownsville, Texas, to Eastport, Maine.
The web site is the first publicly accessible Internet tool that adjusts landfall probabilities for regions and counties based on the current climate and its projected effects on the upcoming hurricane season. Klotzbach and Gray update the site regularly with assistance from the GeoGraphics Laboratory at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts.
Visit http://www.e-transit.org/hurricane.
V.I. Territorial Emergency Management Director Mark Walters could not be reached for comment.
