When will the multi-decade active era that began in 1995 end?

[cycloneye]

The active period from 1995 ended more early than expected or not? This is an important question that requires plenty of analysis and discussions as things have not been too favorable in the North Atlantic (Especially in MDR) in the past few seasons after an active 2010. So pro mets and amateours come and let's discuss about this important topic.

[Yellow Evan]

I generally find this a very interesting topic, even though I don't post on the ATL much.

If you ask me, it's possible, but it is too early to tell for sure. To be honest, it would not shock me to see that the 50s and 60s seasons were similar to the past 2 AHS's. But I also partially blame the recent -PDO (until this year) as well as the lack of El Nino's, which have removed heat from the tropical ATL. The majority of highly active AHS season occurred during a +PDO period and/or following El Ninos, and there is a slight chance we may not even have one this year.


The posts in this forum are NOT official forecast and should not be used as such. They are just the opinion of the poster and may or may not be backed by sound meteorological data. They are NOT endorsed by any professional institution or storm2k.org. For official information, please refer to the NHC and NWS products.

[Ptarmigan]

I generally find this a very interesting topic, even though I don't post on the ATL much.

If you ask me, it's possible, but it is too early to tell for sure. To be honest, it would not shock me to see that the 50s and 60s seasons were similar to the past 2 AHS's. But I also partially blame the recent -PDO (until this year) as well as the lack of El Nino's, which have removed heat from the tropical ATL. The majority of highly active AHS season occurred during a +PDO period and/or following El Ninos, and there is a slight chance we may not even have one this year.


The posts in this forum are NOT official forecast and should not be used as such. They are just the opinion of the poster and may or may not be backed by sound meteorological data. They are NOT endorsed by any professional institution or storm2k.org. For official information, please refer to the NHC and NWS products.

I notice that too when there is warm PDO and AMO, hurricane season is active. Some of the most active seasons occurred in a warm PDO and AMO like 1933, 1995, and 2005.

[TheStormExpert]

Since 2011 I feel we've been on a gradual downward trend with the overall favorability of the Atlantic basin, but up until last season total number of named storms remained high. Now for sure I feel we might be done with the active phase we were in which basically lasted from 1995-2010 (about 15 yrs.) despite storms like Sandy popping up in 2012.

[terstorm1012]

Too soon to tell, however, if it is over, I'd say it's over right on schedule.

If only this particular "clock", like all the Earth's various "clocks" worked like that though.

[tolakram]

I'm not so sure it's over. I don't understand why conditions in the Atlantic are so hostile, more hostile than would normally be expected, even in a down period. At least that's how I understand it. The fact that storms still come close to or minimally develop may indicate we are still in an active period but with some other factor anomalously dampening conditions.

I'd like the thank the Firefox spell checker for helping me with that last sentence.

[gatorcane]

Can I wait to chime in on this topic until 2 months from now? Despite TD #2 getting taken down (and 93L on a similar path), July is climatologically not a friendly month for Atlantic TCs...

[TheStormExpert]

Can I wait to chime in on this topic until 2 months from now? Despite TD #2 getting taken down (and 93L on a similar path), July is climatologically not a friendly month for Atlantic TCs...

Everyone said the same exact thing 365 days ago and look what happened then. Signs are pointing to even drier and more hostile conditions invading the entire MDR in the next week or so.

[tolakram]

Can I wait to chime in on this topic until 2 months from now? Despite TD #2 getting taken down (and 93L on a similar path), July is climatologically not a friendly month for Atlantic TCs...

Everyone said the same exact thing 365 days ago and look what happened then. Signs are pointing to even drier and more hostile conditions invading the entire MDR in the next week or so.

But that very idea is meaningless, IMO, unless you know the WHY's, and we don't. Predicting a dead season and having a dead season does not verify the prediction if there was no science behind it. It's easy to say 2014 will be dead, because it looks dead, and it will be dead until we get more moisture in the tropics. When will that happen and why? If you can't answer that last question then it's just a guess.

So the geniuses predicting a dead season will remain geniuses right up until the time conditions flip.

Go back in talking tropics, way back to say 2004, prior to all the storms forming in August. Go to other seasons that started off slow. There's nothing new with these lines of conversation, and certainly nothing new with people predicting dead seasons.

Personally I doubt conditions will flip in 2014, and I think we may end up with another very slow season, but I don't know why other than extremely dry air is invading the tropics and shows no sign of letting up. I have a hunch that it takes a winter to flip these conditions, but I really have no idea. If mid level humidity rises in a month and shear stays near normal we could suddenly be looking at a "normal" season.

The posts in this forum are NOT official forecast and should not be used as such. They are just the opinion of the poster and may or may not be backed by sound meteorological data. They are NOT endorsed by any professional institution or storm2k.org. For official information, please refer to the NHC and NWS products.

[galaxy401]

Can I wait to chime in on this topic until 2 months from now? Despite TD #2 getting taken down (and 93L on a similar path), July is climatologically not a friendly month for Atlantic TCs...

Everyone said the same exact thing 365 days ago and look what happened then.

People said that in 2010 and look what happened.

I'm not saying this year will be active (I also think this year will be very quiet) but we can't just give up on something that we're only two months in.

[somethingfunny]

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E11.html

The average for the satellite era (1968-2013, a 45 year period which is very evenly split between the 1971-1994 lull and the 1995-present activity) is 11.9/6.2/2.4.

Last year was a slow year despite having 14 storms. 2 hurricanes, 0 majors, that's a slow year. I attribute rising named storm counts partially to improvements in satellite imaging technologies and what seems like a recent extension of the range and frequency of reconnaissance flights, but hurricanes and major hurricanes are gonna be measured pretty consistently throughout the satellite era.

2012 was 19/10/2. That's slightly below average in the majors count but not abnormally low, and the rest was very active.

2011 19/7/4, above average

2010 19/12/5, hyperactive.

2009 9/3/2, slightly below average despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth around here.... it was a slightly slower than average season that was still well within the long-term range of "typical".

2008 and prior, I don't think anybody is questioning if those seasons were part of the active cycle.

I just think we've all been so spoiled since 1995 that a fairly normal season like 2009 seems unbearably slow, and a legitimately lame season like 2013 just seems like the end of the world as we know it.

2014 is about to hit August, so we'll see what happens. Yeah, that's just what people said last year... but that's also just what people said in every other year so....yeah.

The active cycle began abruptly, rising from the early-90s doldrums to smack us with 1995 and then follow it up with a series of active seasons, and the end of the cycle could happen just as abruptly with 2013 being analogous to 1995 and 2014 analogous to 1996 as the first two years of a new series of inactive seasons.

Well even if that is the case, 1997 was a brief return to the old regime, so maybe 2015 will make everybody forget that they ever thought the active cycle was over.

[sponger]

A possible explanation is the decrease in solar activity causing less evaporation and drier air. Solar experts are predicting a 30 year cool down and it is tightly correlated with the decrease in hurricane activity for the Atlantic. The Pacific does not seem to be affected but it has a higher heat capacity. Would love to hear others thoughts on this!

[abajan]

Very interesting. I believe I read that the active and quiet periods usually last between 30 and 40 years each. So, based on that alone, I'd say we're still in an active phase and the last few seasons are just a temporary lull. However, I'd really like to hear the opinions of the promets on this.

[Ptarmigan]

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E11.html

The average for the satellite era (1968-2013, a 45 year period which is very evenly split between the 1971-1994 lull and the 1995-present activity) is 11.9/6.2/2.4.

Last year was a slow year despite having 14 storms. 2 hurricanes, 0 majors, that's a slow year. I attribute rising named storm counts partially to improvements in satellite imaging technologies and what seems like a recent extension of the range and frequency of reconnaissance flights, but hurricanes and major hurricanes are gonna be measured pretty consistently throughout the satellite era.

2012 was 19/10/2. That's slightly below average in the majors count but not abnormally low, and the rest was very active.

2011 19/7/4, above average

2010 19/12/5, hyperactive.

2009 9/3/2, slightly below average despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth around here.... it was a slightly slower than average season that was still well within the long-term range of "typical".

2008 and prior, I don't think anybody is questioning if those seasons were part of the active cycle.

I just think we've all been so spoiled since 1995 that a fairly normal season like 2009 seems unbearably slow, and a legitimately lame season like 2013 just seems like the end of the world as we know it.

2014 is about to hit August, so we'll see what happens. Yeah, that's just what people said last year... but that's also just what people said in every other year so....yeah.

The active cycle began abruptly, rising from the early-90s doldrums to smack us with 1995 and then follow it up with a series of active seasons, and the end of the cycle could happen just as abruptly with 2013 being analogous to 1995 and 2014 analogous to 1996 as the first two years of a new series of inactive seasons.

Well even if that is the case, 1997 was a brief return to the old regime, so maybe 2015 will make everybody forget that they ever thought the active cycle was over.

2006 and 2009 are considered "average" season whether cool or warm Atlantic Ocean. Even in cool Atlantic phase, there are going to be active seasons like 1979-1980, 1985, or 1988-1989. Warm phase have less active seasons.

The 1960s is in the warm phase of Atlantic, yet some seasons were less active like 1962 and 1968. Warm phase tends to last longer than cool phase.

[CrazyC83]

2013 in the WPAC was more active than usual for recent years too? So that may be a hint as well.

[brunota2003]

One thing I find interesting is the last 2 or 3 years or so...El Nino was predicted to take effect during the busy part of the season...but never did. Go look during the late winter into spring months, and see all the calls for El Nino developing during the A/S/O time frame for this year, last year and I think the year before as well? Then once we got into the season in the J/J time frame, all of a sudden the thoughts of El Nino all but evaporated. Why were such "strong" signals that it was about to kick off ultimately proven "wrong"?

[Yellow Evan]

One thing I find interesting is the last 2 or 3 years or so...El Nino was predicted to take effect during the busy part of the season...but never did. Go look during the late winter into spring months, and see all the calls for El Nino developing during the A/S/O time frame for this year, last year and I think the year before as well? Then once we got into the season in the J/J time frame, all of a sudden the thoughts of El Nino all but evaporated. Why were such "strong" signals that it was about to kick off ultimately proven "wrong"?

2012 El Nino didn't materialize. That was a bust due to -PDO and lack of sub surface warming.

2013 only the Euro showed an El Nino.

2014 is still more likely to IMO be an El Nino than not.

[gigabite]

http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/historical-atl ... rm-records captured 8-3-14

This looks like a 30 year cycle with irregularity at the half cycle. The look of the "Figure 2: Atlantic tropical storm counts adjusted for likely missing storms" seems to suggest that 2030 would be the end of the cycle.

[euro6208]

I have a theory on why the atlantic has been this slow the past couple of seasons and the pacific slightly more active esp the wpac...but is not related to weather and might not be appropriate in this thread...lol...

pm me for details...

[euro6208]

2013 in the WPAC was more active than usual for recent years too? So that may be a hint as well.

Yes it was quite active...

27 Tropical storms
15 Typhoons
11 Major Typhoons
---Five category 4
---Three category 5...

Some saying 2013 was very slow but i don't know what is considered a *slow*, *below average* over here since it is always active...

It was also deadly...6825 killed...mostly from haiyan in the P.I...