Season Cancel!

[CrazyC83]

What a weird season. The Atlantic keeps putting out storms but they never get anywhere. The EPAC is struggling to get going, but when they pop up, they become monsters in most cases.

[rainstorm]

We are getting closer to the point where it is possible, however unlikely, that we'll only have three hurricanes this season. I would have never guessed it would be so slack this season. Add to this the fact that the EPAC has another cat-4 over low end heat content waters??? Wow.

It would be really nice to get some insight as to why this is happening. And not just "vertical instability issues" or "shear" and "persistent East Coast trough". Why are those phenomenon in place this season? What caused them to be there that the major forecast gurus did not see months ago? Were there not clues in the long range models that a massive high would just sit over Texas and vicinity? Surely the modeling did not show a strong subtropical ridge for the summer and it just happens that it was simply not there. How can something that large in the overall pattern be missed? Just wanting to understand. It's kind of like your favorite sports team being projected to win it all and they come out flat the entire season and actually end up near the bottom of the pack. You just have to wonder....

i think too many people want to make forecasts too early. i said back in late may, based on the pattern then that the season would be tame with a dominant west atlantic trough. worked out pretty well.

[Ntxw]

People put too much into heat content and ocean temps when making forecast/predictions. The tropical waters usually are always warm enough to support cat5's once passed June all the way through early October every year. More emphasis needs to be put on atmospheric conditions and weather patterns especially dealing with systems closer to the subtropics.

[DanKellFla]

I just hope the prevailing pattern holds and that whatever storms come remain fish storms.

[somethingfunny]

This is exciting. Ophelia, Phillippe soon, brand-new 91L possibly becoming Rina... By the time we get to NW Caribbean Monster season, we'll be using names like Sean, Tammy, Vince, Whitney.

Alpha?

[dwsqos2]

Still in the mood for party-pooping, but ACE is only slightly above the climo to-date mean. Now, if the 6Z gfs happens to handle 17L correctly (I doubt it.) that could change slightly. But the high storm count is still not very impressive to me.

[somethingfunny]

Still in the mood for party-pooping, but ACE is only slightly above the climo to-date mean. Now, if the 6Z gfs happens to handle 17L correctly (I doubt it.) that could change slightly. But the high storm count is still not very impressive to me.

Eh, it's an average season. Take away half of all the inconsequential bonus tropical storms and you've got a season that looks like 8/3/2 going into the last week of September. Not a big deal really, we've had plenty of seasons like this even during the active period since 1995. ACE is slightly above average and we'll get some hurricanes here in the late season. What excites me is using storm names that don't usually get used.

[Florida1118]

Still in the mood for party-pooping, but ACE is only slightly above the climo to-date mean. Now, if the 6Z gfs happens to handle 17L correctly (I doubt it.) that could change slightly. But the high storm count is still not very impressive to me.

Eh, it's an average season. Take away half of all the inconsequential bonus tropical storms and you've got a season that looks like 8/3/2 going into the last week of September. Not a big deal really, we've had plenty of seasons like this even during the active period since 1995. ACE is slightly above average and we'll get some hurricanes here in the late season. What excites me is using storm names that don't usually get used.

Exactly...I wanna go to Alpha or Bust. Hurricanes...well if you like watching them, theres a pretty one over in the EPAC. October and November still to go, so no one put your supplies away yet...

[bg1]

If I remember correctly, there was 2 lulls in 2005, and one was taking place right at this time. Then 9 depressions formed in October, 7 storms, 4 hurricanes, and 2 major hurricanes. It also seems that there may be a hurricane in the open Atlantic in the next 2 days.

[gigabite]

If I remember correctly, there was 2 lulls in 2005, and one was taking place right at this time. Then 9 depressions formed in October, 7 storms, 4 hurricanes, and 2 major hurricanes. It also seems that there may be a hurricane in the open Atlantic in the next 2 days.

Notes on the difference between 2005 and 2011.
1. The 2005 season was proceeded by 5 years of high temperatures in the inter-tropical convergence zone. It wasn’t extremely high. It was constantly high. Check out the TAO Array buoy at 0,180 from 2001 to 2011.
2. GOES N was launched in 2006. This particular piece of technology improved the storm sensing ability over the Atlantic by 400 percent. To me that means if we do have a true analog 2005 season there may be as many as Atlantic 46 tropical storms.

http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atl ... index.html

http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atl ... index.html

[rainstorm]

If I remember correctly, there was 2 lulls in 2005, and one was taking place right at this time. Then 9 depressions formed in October, 7 storms, 4 hurricanes, and 2 major hurricanes. It also seems that there may be a hurricane in the open Atlantic in the next 2 days.

sure, there were lulls in 2005 but before the lulls there was real action.

[gigabite]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsIBk8RjZ_Y[/youtube]
Narration: 2005, 2011 Differences
This video contains some charts that demonstrate a few differences between the 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season and the 2011 Atlantic Hurricane Season
Slide One: is a graph from the TAO Array at 180 degrees West and 5 degrees North. Notice the period of consistently high temperatures between 2003 and 2005
Slide Two: Notice how the high temperatures fall off from 2005 to 2011
Slide Three: Is the distance to the sun at mid summer
Slide Four: Shows how the three year pattern was broken in 2003, giving three distant years ending with 2005
Slide Five: Is a graph showing the rise and fall of the New Moon during the 2005 hurricane season. The New Moon is well across the equator in March and isn’t south of the equator until October
Slide Six: Is a graph showing the same pattern in 2011, except the New Moon doesn’t cross the equator until April and is South of the equator in September.
Slide Seven: shows the New Moon Sub-point well south of the metrological equator in September.

[bexar]

I think 2011 will go down as one of the lamest hurricane seasons in recent history

seriously, 2011 made 2006 and 2009 seasons look more interesting.

and it made more sense as they were both El Nino years.



for now, I'd rather see this season end up with Philippe rather than the parade of weak and struggling storms continue.

[Florida1118]

I think 2011 will go down as one of the lamest hurricane seasons in recent history

seriously, 2011 made 2006 and 2009 seasons look more interesting.

and it made more sense as they were both El Nino years.



for now, I'd rather see this season end up with Philippe rather than the parade of weak and struggling storms continue.

Well if we stop now, we wont get to Greek, which really might be the saving grace of this season for records

[ConvergenceZone]

2011 will be remembered as the season of Irene, and that's probably it......I said this before and I'll say it again, the conditions just aren't out this year for anything to get going. If it's not dry air ripping storms/depressions apart, then it's shear.... There might still be some scattered weak storms before the season ends, but other then that, bring on 2012......

[FireRat]

We can't give up on 'ole October just yet

Still, given the trend this year, Irene may have a shot at being the worst storm of the year! Irene was a handful though. One storm too many for those in its path in the Bahamas and then in the NE U.S. with the floods.

Oh and 2012....err, do we wanna know how that one will turn out?

[hurricanetrack]

It is possible that Ophelia will make a comeback and become a hurricane. I truly believe that will happen before all is said and done with that system. Why? Almost every system this year reached its peak intensity outside of the deep tropics. Why stop now? Philippe also has a chance to become a hurricane. This would put us at 5 total- one shy of an average season. Assuming no more form from here on out, we would end up with 16, 5, 2- below average in the hurricanes dept. but spot on for majors. Of course, above average for NS. If it's all smoothed out, then I guess it would be pretty much an average season which was a possibility. Remember, no one that I know of said that this year would be 100% guaranteed to be hyper-active, full of intense hurricanes. It's all about probability and once again, the low side appears to be the winner.

It's funny, you know it's a slack season when a certain somebody who usually says "look here for trouble" or "big end game coming up" is only talking about politics and climate change. There's your tried and true sign that "season cancel" is upon us.

[ConvergenceZone]

We can't give up on 'ole October just yet

Still, given the trend this year, Irene may have a shot at being the worst storm of the year! Irene was a handful though. One storm too many for those in its path in the Bahamas and then in the NE U.S. with the floods.

Oh and 2012....err, do we wanna know how that one will turn out?

That's true, we can't give up yet, there might still be another depression or weak tropical storm to come out of the season yet

[bg1]

Well, so far, in the midst of a La Nina , the Eastern Pacific has had four storms stronger than Katia, the strongest storm wind-wise in the Atlantic. Four storms. That's HALF the cyclones!

The weakest storm, Fernanda, had top winds of 65 mph. It outdid 8 of the Atlantic's storms, that's HALF of ALL TROPICAL STORMS THERE!!!

It also matched 3 others, a combined 68.75%!!!1!!1!! I am going crazy trying to figure this one out!

I hope October isn't as boring as this year in general, or like October 2006. Of course, I hope they don't do any damage.

[FireRat]

With that persistent east coast trough, and if it continues It'll be darn possible that Florida sees snow this winter