BUSY CANE SEASON!!

[mamadude]

Posted on Mon, May. 19, 2003

Hurricane center predicting busy season
By MARTIN MERZER
Miami Herald

MIAMI - It could be an adventurous tropical weather season, with twice as many hurricanes forming this year as in 2002 and a higher chance that an intense storm will strike Florida or elsewhere along the East Coast.

Federal forecasters marked Monday's start of Hurricane Awareness Week by predicting a busier-than-usual season, with 11 to 15 named tropical storms that grow into six to nine hurricanes. Two to four of those hurricanes could become intense, with wind that exceeds 110 mph.

The average season produces about 10 tropical storms and six hurricanes, two of them intense. Four hurricanes developed last year, including two intense storms. The hurricane season begins June 1 and ends Nov. 30.

"Let me put it in layman's terms," said Michael Brown, who runs the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "It could be really bad."

Private hurricane expert William Gray also is predicting an unusually active season. His latest forecast, issued in April, calls for 12 named storms that grow into eight hurricanes, three of them intense. He will issue an updated forecast May 30.

Gray, a meteorologist at Colorado State University, also predicts a 68 percent chance that an intense hurricane will strike the U.S. mainland this year and a 48 percent chance that one will hit the East Coast, including all of Florida. The averages during the past century: 52 percent for the entire mainland and 31 percent for the East Coast.

Why the greater threat this year?

Experts point to warmer-than-usual Atlantic surface temperatures and a developing La Nina, the unusually cold ocean temperatures in the eastern Pacific that inhibit the formation of hurricane-destroying crosswinds.

Last year, the opposite El Nino condition existed, and it seemed to generate crosswinds that suppressed hurricane development.

"La Nina - that's probably not good news," said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in West Miami-Dade County.

Federal officials urged residents of the hurricane zone to prepare now by assembling a survival kit of food, water and batteries, and, if they live in an evacuation area, mapping an in-county escape plan.

Coastal populations continue to grow, they noted, placing ever-rising numbers of people at risk.

"We may have become lackadaisical about hurricanes," Brown said. "My message to you is, `Get over it.'"

[breeze]

Sounds like this is gonna be one busy board!

Thanks, mamadude!

[weatherlover427]

I heard that on TWC today ... get ready everyone!

[Guest]

I am certainly ready for it ................Thier numbers look like ours we posted on the tropical forum.............And we now have less then 12 days before it offically begins!!!!! WoooHooo!

[weatherlover427]

You guys are good!

[Rainband]

Thanks for the information Brenda!!! I think we are gonna be busy this year!!! There will be alot of posts and activity on Storm2k!!!!