“The 2012 Atlantic hurricane season will be “below average” with 10 named storms, four of which will strengthen into hurricanes and two of those may become major hurricanes of Categories 3, 4, or 5″.
That prediction was made earlier this week by Colorado State University forecasters Professor William Gray and Dr. Phillip Klotzbach for the 2012 hurricane season.
It is the first of the three forecasts which will be presented this Hurricane Season. The other two will be June 1 and August 3.
In a presentation made at the recently held National Hurricane Conference in Orlando, Florida, they said they had abandoned their first forecast in December of the previous year citing lack of conclusive information at that time.
In an average year, there are 11 named tropical storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico during the season that runs from June 1 to November 30.
The outlook for a quieter 2012 season was based on two main factors.According to the forecasters, hurricanes thrive on warm water and the tropical Atlantic has cooled this year and there is also a “fairly high” likelihood that an El Nino effect will develop this summer.
El Nino is a warming of surface waters in the tropical Pacific that occurs every four to 12 years and has far-ranging effects around the globe. It creates wind shear that makes it harder for storms to grow into hurricanes in the Atlantic-Caribbean basin.
“We anticipate a below-average probability for major hurricanes making landfall along the United States coastline and in the Caribbean”, says Dr. Klotzbach of the CSU Tropical Meteorology Project.
Despite the forecast for a moderate number of storms, Dr. Klotzbach urges vulnerable coastal residents to take the same hurricane preparations and precautions they do every year since it only takes one hurricane making landfall to make it an active season for them.
According to the researchers, there is a 42 percent chance that a major hurricane will hit the U.S. coast this year, compared with a historical average of 52 percent, a 24 percent chance a major hurricane would hit the U.S. East Coast, compared with a historical average of 31 percent, and a 24 percent one would hit the Gulf of Mexico coast, compared with an average of 30 percent.
Some minor changes will be noticed when the National Hurricane Center begins issuing its advisories this year. That’s because forecasters have made some small changes to the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity to fix a longstanding problem that arises from rounding up figures.
The scale divides hurricanes into five categories based on wind speed measured in 5-knot increments.
For public advisories, knots are converted to miles per hour and kilometers per hour, rounded up to the nearest 5 mph or 5 kph.That created problems when storms neared the threshold dividing the categories.
Because of the rounding up of figures, it was possible for a storm to fall into Category 4 when measured by knots and Category 3 when measured in miles or kilometers per hour.
To remedy that situation, small adjustments in thresholds were made to categories 3, 4 and 5, while categories 1 and 2 remain the same.
The change takes effect on May 15 and does not affect categories assigned to hurricanes that occurred previously.
The new scale is:
Category 1: 74-95 mph
Category 2: 96-110 mph
Category 3: 111-129 mph (Currently 111 – 130 mph)
Category 4: 130-156 mph (Currently 131 – 155 mph)
Category 5: 157 mph or higher (Currently higher than 155 mph)
The Hurricane season normally peaks during the months of August/September but residents of the region are being asked to begin their preparedness activities from now while it is still early.
Preparedness activities is expected to focus primarily on shelters and shelter management and vulnerability reduction or elimination.
It only takes ONE event to create mayhem. So this news is not comforting.
When David struck in 1979 only two named storms affected Dominica, the other was Frederick.
So Dominicans get prepared, half a storm in enough bad news.
True…………