Thoughts on rest of 2014 N Atlantic Hurricane season

[psyclone]

patience is worth its weight in gold in this business. One thing I have noticed as a long time observer...people are way too quick to declare the season started and over. we're always front running. it's pointless. sit back and enjoy the ride. If you expect a storm in May you're probably going to get burned. likewise if you declare the season over two weeks past peak. You're probably not going to be correct. Digging in to a position and refusing to change when the facts do is also a fairly common theme... we're all vulnerable to it. Hammy gets my gold star for being the most steady eddy poster in this thread, calmly and relentlessly dishing out facts and logic. Keep it up...we need you:)

[Hammy]

Still not impressed, but it takes ALOT to impress me.....Nobody can predict with certainty what's going to happen for sure, that's why they are predictions....You folks that said there would be more storms could have JUST AS EASILY BEEN WRONG AS WELL.....You basically had a 50% 50% of being wrong but as luck has it, you were correct this time.........

Any prediction is 50/50, but predictions were made based on scientific reasoning rather than personal skeptical pessimism based solely on "people last year said." There almost seems to be a bit of ego behind some of your posts, and as much as you were ragging on people "where are these 2-3 storms that people are forecasting" and now that they have formed, your post is bordering on aggressive with the all caps. You seem displeased with the lack of storms and then seem equally displeased that your forecast of nothing failed to play out, which to be honest is slightly baffling.

No need to be uncivil here, you were wrong this time, so admit it and move on

[ConvergenceZone]

Still not impressed, but it takes ALOT to impress me.....Nobody can predict with certainty what's going to happen for sure, that's why they are predictions....You folks that said there would be more storms could have JUST AS EASILY BEEN WRONG AS WELL.....You basically had a 50% 50% of being wrong but as luck has it, you were correct this time.........

Any prediction is 50/50, but predictions were made based on scientific reasoning rather than personal skeptical pessimism based solely on "people last year said." There almost seems to be a bit of ego behind some of your posts, and as much as you were ragging on people "where are these 2-3 storms that people are forecasting" and now that they have formed, your post is bordering on aggressive with the all caps. You seem displeased with the lack of storms and then seem equally displeased that your forecast of nothing failed to play out, which to be honest is slightly baffling.

No need to be uncivil here, you were wrong this time, so admit it and move on

Well in past seasons when I've been right about storms at the very end of the season, I've never messaged someone and posted on them at the end of that season.... I just let it pass and took the higher road.....I will also end by saying, that if you look at my early season "prediction" of ending at the "G" storm. So far I'm closer than more people have been with their numbers....but I think I will take the higher road and not rub that in because "I" can understand that people just make "predictions", nothing less, nothing more....

[Hammy]

Well in past seasons when I've been right about storms at the very end of the season, I've never messaged someone and posted on them at the end of that season.... I just let it pass and took the higher road.....I will also end by saying, that if you look at my early season "prediction" of ending at the "G" storm. So far I'm closer than more people have been with their numbers....but I think I will take the higher road and not rub that in because "I" can understand that people just make "predictions", nothing less, nothing more....

Nothing is being rubbed in, your previous post seemed very belligerent is all.

[ConvergenceZone]

Well in past seasons when I've been right about storms at the very end of the season, I've never messaged someone and posted on them at the end of that season.... I just let it pass and took the higher road.....I will also end by saying, that if you look at my early season "prediction" of ending at the "G" storm. So far I'm closer than more people have been with their numbers....but I think I will take the higher road and not rub that in because "I" can understand that people just make "predictions", nothing less, nothing more....

Nothing is being rubbed in, your previous post seemed very belligerent is all.

My capital letters were only use to emphasis. I'm a not a meteorologist, I'm a professional day trader and one of the best in the business, but I've never claimed to be one of the best in the business when it comes to my hobby of meteorology. Just making predictions like everyone else...... Sometimes you knock them out of the part and sometimes you don't............

[Steve]

I'm pretty sure this will be an eventful mid/late season. Water temperature profiles have flipped to where the Gulf has some of the hottest waters in the entire basin even if the anomalies are mostly average. The US East Coast (and particularly off maritime Canada) has the hottest waters relative to average at this time. I agree with everyone who focused the season on the Florida Peninsula, SE US Coast and Eastern Seaboard. We had the one hurricane and there should be at least a couple more threats. I wouldn't be surprised to see something sneak in to the Gulf, although I don't think the Gulf will have more than a typical amount of named storms or depressions (probably 2-3 max) regardless of origin.

Pattern has been evolving in the Gulf South. Throughout June, July and early August, there have been strong fronts out ahead of transient troughs that were making it into the Gulf of Mexico. However, as the pattern is evolving toward the proverbial summer high tide, only weak boundaries are settling down this way with most of the surface and upper lows lifting out Northeast from the Midwest and Great Lakes. The way I interpret that is that the downstream implications are for ridging to pulse off of an into the SE US Coast, and obviously depending on timing and what might be lurking will depend on threats in that area.

Arguing against substantial activity is the fact that El Nino is progged to increase by many models toward 1.5/2.0 before diminishing later on. In a nutshell, I would expect a less than recent averages season probably getting us to the G or H storm with at least 2-3 threats to th US, Mexico and Canada. It may be early September before we see any multiple, simultaneous activity, but don't count the season out at this point. That's a foolish assumption.

End season re-review. Admittedly, I put this out there halfway through the season (at the time, August 14, 2014, we were only through the C storm including 1 depression that didn't get named. So there were some ideas of where we were headed. Overall, I'd give myself a "B" for the prognostication. Yeah, we got to the H storm. Yeah, the Western Atlantic was the obvious pathway out for any systems (7 of the 9 that at leat became depressions, with the other 2 in the Southern BoC). Yeah, the pattern flipped as I thought it would and stuck a pretty substantial ridge in the SE US which could have made the Southern US a wide open target had anything materialized south of that ridge of high presesure which became a semi-permanent feature. I know some say that tropical systems are part and parcel of the overall weather. And I do agree. But more than just the patterns themselves dictate whether you have a spin south of a blocking high pressure. You actually need that spin. And no, the season is over was, as it usually is, a foolish call in mid-August. We got 5 additional named storms, 3 of which were threats to Mexico, the US or Canada (should have included Caribbean/Bahamian Kingdom and Bermuda rather than assuming anyone would include them in a US/Canada/Mexico threat area). However, we didn't get the El Nino I thought we'd get. It appeared we were headed toward a range around 1.5-2.0, but I'm not sure we ever even broke 1.0 in all 4 ENSO regions. This isn't to say we will or won't over the next 12-18 months, I'm not sure at all.

So my writeup and guesses ended up being fairly decent. I'd encourage anyone who has an axe to grind or an agenda to promote to step out of their own shoes rather than trying to treat the season like a championship wrestling match. God knows our polictical system has turned into exactly that. Arguing just to be arguing, or defending some indefensible point like September is going to give us 20 named storms or a 0-0-0 scenario is ludicrous. Those types of offerings basically pigeon hole the author into the defensive. There are always surprises, but being rooted in realistic ideas will probably result in realistic predictions. Thanks, and I hope everyone has have a great holiday season.

[CrazyC83]

If I were to give a grade to overall forecasts on this board, I would give an A-. After a dismal failure in 2013, most of us were very conservative. The only reason I didn't give higher marks was because most of us thought there would be even fewer hurricanes and 0 or 1 major hurricanes. It was the opposite of 2013: while storms had a hard time producing, they seemed to develop nicely if they managed to produce.

My forecast was 8/3/0 by the way.