My buddy who is a meteorologist- hurricane prediction

[stormlover2013]

for some reason it won't let me post the images he has on this email

Good Tuesday everyone,

First off, I hope you all are doing great and having a tremendous week. Some of you are teachers and I know you school year is almost over. Heck, here we are almost halfway through the year already for 2017. Amazing the really think about it honestly. Of course that also means we are nearing summer time and the start of hurricane season on June 1. Hurricane season runs from June 1-November 30 with the most active period in early September. Each year, I like to throw some scenarios at you all and see how it verified to previous years.

While I was way off on where I thought many of the storms would hit, I was pretty happy with my prediction. See below.

2016 Hurricane Season (My prediction)
Named Storms - 15 (12-14)
Hurricanes - 7 (5-7)
Major (Cat. 3 or greater) - 4 (3-4)

So, first of all, here is how I think the season is going to play out. So, early in the year there were indications that El Nino would develop and become fairly prevalent across the eastern Pacific. Remember, El Nino is when there are warmer than average waters off the coast of South America and this leads to high pressure (sinking air) across the tropical Atlantic which in turn, inhibits hurricane development. As you see in the pic below, this is a very strong and classic El Nino, but predictions weren't going to be that strong this year.



However, as we have progressed throughout the year, the tradewinds have stayed up and that has kept us in a neutral phase between El Nino and La Nina. This trend is forecast to continue through hurricane season which means it appears we will have a fairly active hurricane season ahead. I will have my numbers for you all in a bit.

Something I like to look at to begin the hurricane season is where a drought is occurring across the United States. Usually this is a precursor to where a heat ridge or upper high pressure sets up as it likes dry areas and areas that have seen limited rainfall. It doesn't always happen like this but it is something I do like referring to off and on. High pressure in the upper levels of the atmosphere tends to steer a tropical disturbance and this is usually key to blocking an area of pushing it west. This is the latest drought monitor below which shows a drought setting up across Florida and the Old South.

My thinking is especially early in the season, the ridge will setup over the areas shaded in red and orange before eventually shifting westward over the Midwest and Southern Plains. I have a feeling if there is an opportunity for activity across the central and western Gulf coast, it will be early in the season and again later in the season as the ridge shifts. With all of that being said, here are my predictions broken down by area. I have labeled most areas by having an "above average," "average" and "below average" opportunity for a landfall. While I will be honest, I am not a big "analog" year guy, here are a couple of years experts are pinning down as similar to the patterns leading up to this point.

1963


2002

My gut tells me that our numbers are going to be very similar to what occurred in 2002 and the look will also be very much the same as well. Below are my thoughts and predictions geographically of the risk of a landfalling storm.

RED - High Risk
Orange - Moderate Risk
Yellow - Average Risk
Green - Below Average Risk

Please keep in mind if you are in the below average risk, it does not mean to let your guard down. All it takes is one time to get hit by a strong hurricane.

Texas - RED
Lousiana - RED
Mississipp/Alabama - ORANGE
West Florida/Florida Panhandle - YELLOW
South and east Florida - ORANGE
Georgia/South Carolina - YELLOW
North Carolina - ORANGE
Virginia-Long Island - YELLOW
North of Long Island - GREEN

Just another reminder, this is a little mix of my gut feeling, past analog years and how I think the pattern could setup like for this hurricane season. This is one of the toughest things to predict but I do have a feeling the central and western Gulf could be in for an active season.

As for the numbers, with the recent trends of a fairly neutral to slightly weak El Nino on the horizon for this upcoming hurricane season, I think our numbers will be very similar to last year and also in 2002. I am think we will have a slight higher than average season.

Average hurricane numbers:
Named storms - 12
Hurricanes - 6
Major Hurricanes - 2-3

We are in a fairly active hurricane cycle and with warmer than average Tropical Atlantic sea surface temps, tropical activity should be slightly elevated.


Due to a few recent cold fronts that have pushed through the Gulf of Mexico, those temps have dropped some to below average but those should rebound quickly. Otherwise, much of the tropical Atlantic is well above average. And as you see, not much resemblance of El Nino occurring.

There could be another factor of this and that is the Saharan Air Layer which is dust that blows off of Africa and into the Atlantic. This also inhibits development of tropical disturbances in the Atlantic basin because the dry air kills whatever is trying to form. As you can see in the imagine below, the orange and yellows depict the African dust out there and you will see this plenty of times during hurricane season.



So here we go, as many of you are wanting to know my prediction for the upcoming year.

2017 Hurricane Season Prediction

Named storms - 14-16
Hurricanes - 6-8
Major Hurricanes - 3-4

Well there you have it. As always, you can check out updates with me via Facebook and through twitter @Nathan_Weather. But my main way of communications is through email as I still like doing this for you. If there is anyone you would like to add, let me know or if you have any questions, please feel free to ask and I will answer accordingly. Thanks again for your time and I hope you all have a great week!!

Nathan

[Socalhurcnegirl227]

This was a good read. I like his analogy of where drought is occuring to areas of threat and found that interesting. Especially given the circumstances of us here in california being lifted out of such major drought conditions. Interesstingly if you look at the weather patterns of california/west coast since after 2005, california was in a non drought nuetral pattern during winter and got torrential down pour and obviously we know what happened that summer. After that we got progressively drier and drier and in severe drought which have been the most inactive hurricane years and now we are in a nuetral period and our drought was lifted so it very well could be a very active season

[p1nheadlarry]

I think we could see a healthier MDR and some good CV waves develop in the Atlantic in August as opposed to the last few seasons where most storms didn't develop until reaching the W Caribbean. Last few seasons have seen the best conditions post-peak, but I think with the possibility of neutral ENSO and positive AMO we could see a classic long-tracked CV hurricane or two this season in the summer. Just my gut feeling. 15-8-3