Philip J. Klotzbach/Dr Gray's May 31 Outlook=17/9/5

[cycloneye]

What will they have in their May outlook? Will they leave the same numbers of 17/9/5 that the April Outlook had,or there will be changes downward or upwards?

http://typhoon.atmos.colostate.edu/fore ... /june2007/

The numbers remain the same as in April,17/9/5.

Any comments about this May outlook are welcomed.

[windstorm99]

No change on the outlook 17/9/5


Not surpriseing as a nina continues to look likely and conditions around the MDR region will be favorable.

[cycloneye]

5 West Africa Conditions



After putting less emphasis on conditions in West Africa over the past few years due to a failure of the African rainfall/Atlantic hurricane relationship, we have decided to take a further look at conditions over West Africa this year. We believe that a portion of the recent failure of this relationship is due to measurement quality and other errors over this portion of the globe. With the development of various satellite data products, we can now obtain more accurate and consistent measurements of currently-observed conditions.



There were considerable excursions of dry air/dust over the tropical Atlantic during August of last year, and these conditions may have been partly responsible for the inactive early portion of last season’s hurricane activity. Amato Evan and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison/Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) have developed a dataset of Saharan dust loadings from 1982-present (Evan et al. 2006). When dust loadings are greater than normal, it results in cooler tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures due to less solar radiation reaching the surface. In addition, heightened Saharan dust concentrations imply increased stability and higher surface pressures, both of which are unfavorable for tropical cyclogenesis and intensification. Cooler SSTs associated with enhanced April-May Saharan dust loadings tend to persist for the following few months and appear to cause a damping influence on the season’s hurricane activity.



Over the time period from 1982-2006, April-May Saharan dust loadings correlate at approximately 0.5 with dust loadings during August-September, implying a fairly strong persistence between conditions during both time periods. April-May dust also correlates at -0.43 with Net Tropical Cyclone (NTC) activity during the upcoming hurricane season, implying that April-May dust is an additional factor that should be considered when issuing seasonal hurricane forecasts.



A preliminary estimate of April-May 2007 Saharan dust loadings, provided by Amato Evan and colleagues from CIMSS, calculates that moderate levels of dust have been present over the tropical Atlantic during these two months. The April-May 2007 dust values indicate to us neither an enhancing nor a detrimental feedback on the upcoming season. Therefore, current analysis of Saharan dust loadings does not cause us to adjust our forecast either upwards or downwards.




The Colorado team has returned to the Western African Factor that they abandoned in recent years.Interesting what they say about the dust.

[Berwick Bay]

The dust has been a factor in recent years. Cape Verde storms are down. My own prediction is that this will be a very active season, but once again storm formation in the Cape Verde area will be below normal. But I'm looking for persistent waves which will develop later in their cycles toward the Windward Islands (Barbados in particular) and for those systems on a slightly more northerly track, development in the lower Bahamas or Turks and Caicos areas. This would allow for more westerly tracks out of those areas and then the turn north into the Gulf of Mexico. As for Dr. Gray's overall forecast, I'm not a big fan. I think in years to come we may look back and admire him for the effort, but not for the accuracy of his forecasts. I think many others (probably some on this board) could do just as well.

[TheRingo]

..

[bubbamills]

Bastardi made the call also maybe Berwick reads his info.

[cycloneye]

Let's not deviate from the theme of this thread and that is the May 31rst outlook from the Colorado State University Team.Let's comment about that and not enter to other issues.

[cpdaman]

with all due respect i dont think they have much of a handle on this at all. it is an experiment in the making.

[cycloneye]

with all due respect i dont think they have much of a handle on this at all. it is an experiment in the making.

What do you mean?

[cpdaman]

i think they are trying to predict something that is for the most part unpredicatable this far out.


i think that they are essentially throwing darts when they give different things different weights and can only speculate on what did or didn't go wrong in the past and why and then reweight the issues again based on better information capabilities which may not even be a major factor in the first place. i think IF it is possible to forecast hurricanes accurately for a season in MAY (big if in my mind) that they are not close to having an accurate system in place. that's all

they are the best , and i have no qualms with that. only that they are trying to predict the unpredicatable. i think they will only be able to predict vague generalizations at best this far out.