Hurricane season arrived early this year, as Subtropical Storm Alberto became the first named storm of the season late last week. Alberto ruined a Memorial Day weekend for the majority of the Gulf Coast as it doused the area with rain and even flooding. This anomaly subtropical storm actually came slightly earlier than the official start date of hurricane season. The official hurricane season runs from June 1st to November 30th for the Atlantic Ocean, and May 15th through November 30th for Eastern Pacific Ocean. After last fall’s major hurricane impacts, RedZone wanted to relay what the hurricane forecasts are predicting about the upcoming hurricane season.
Colorado State University releases an “Extended Range Forecast of Atlantic Seasonal Hurricane Activity and Landfall Strike Probability” report each year. This report is based off models that incorporate 30 years of atmospheric conditions, and hurricane data for statistical analysis. The current conditions in the Atlantic Ocean seem to be in a weak La Niña currently. This means that the oceans temperatures are relatively cooler than average. This is not conducive for hurricane formation and strengthening. As a reminder, ENSO, otherwise known as the El Niño and the Southern Oscillation, is the periodic fluctuation of sea surface temperature. The worry from the Oceanic forecast, though, is that the ENSO transitional phase will occur during the summer months. The thinking is, the transition from La Niña conditions into even a mild El Niño (warmer sea surface temperatures) could result in above normal hurricane activity this hurricane season.
This figure is the results from the model that Colorado State uses to predict the hurricane forecast.
This figure depicts the final analysis made by Colorado State University in totality regarding numbers related to the upcoming hurricane season. As you can see this year is expected to be above the 30 year average in every category that is shown. Below is a figure depicting FEMA’s modeling outlook for the Hurricane season. FEMA’s model shows very little variation from what Colorado State’s results were.
NOAA’s Hurricane Season Outlook is predicting an average to above average year
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/27/us/weather-storm-alberto/index.html
https://www.livescience.com/57671-hurricane-season.html
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ninonina.html
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/teleconnections/enso/enso-tech.php
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