Hurricane season has been a dud

[sfwx]

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/storms/ ... htm?csp=34

Hurricane season has been a dud

By Jennifer Kay, Associated Press Writer
MIAMI — It may be tempting the weather gods just to point this out, but this has been a dud of a hurricane season so far.
Only two hurricanes have formed in the Atlantic over the past three months, and neither hit the USA — a somewhat unusual lull.

"I'm glad that I didn't have to go out and get anything — yet," said Lissette Galiana, who was shopping at a Wal-Mart in suburban Miami on Friday, around what is usually the very peak of the Atlantic hurricane season. "There's always a chance."
Forecasters attribute the calm to a weak El Nino, the periodic warming of the central Pacific Ocean. It is producing strong upper-level winds out of the west that are shearing off the tops of thunderstorm clouds that can develop into hurricanes.

Of course, the season has nearly 2 1/2 months to go, and forecasters and emergency planners are warning people not to let their guard down, noting that powerful hurricanes have hit in the fall, including Wilma, which cut an unusually large swath of damage across Florida in October 2005.

"It's less active, but there's still possibility of a hurricane strike," said Gerry Bell, a hurricane forecaster at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center in Washington.

NOAA's forecast just before the June 1 start of the Atlantic season called for nine to 14 named tropical storms, with four to seven of them becoming hurricanes.

No tropical storms took shape until Aug. 15, when Ana formed. Five more have developed since then, including Claudette, which hit the Florida Panhandle. Two of those tropical storms strengthened into Hurricanes Bill and Fred.

Bill never came ashore in the U.S. but churned up waves blamed for at least two deaths — one in Maine, the other in Florida. Fred, meanwhile, weakened to a tropical storm Friday while it was still far out over the Atlantic.

By mid-September of last year, there had been nine tropical storms, five of them hurricanes, including Ike, which plowed into Galveston Island, Texas, on Sept. 13, Gustav, which pounded Louisiana on Sept. 1, and Dolly, which slammed South Texas in late July.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina smashed New Orleans in late August, and Hurricane Rita, the 17th named storm of the season, howled ashore near the Texas-Louisiana line on Sept. 24.

But no hurricanes at all struck the USA in 2000, 2001 or 2006. And during a less active period from 1970 to 1994, there were six seasons when no hurricanes hit this country.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency advises coastal residents to maintain kits of emergency supplies and other items that might be needed in a storm.

Venus Witherspoon of Miami keeps a disaster kit packed all year with candles, batteries, flashlights, canned food, a radio and about 10 gallons of water. She has maintained it since Wilma four years ago.

"You never know when you're going to need it," said the 54-year-old state employee. "The things you keep in there don't perish. I might drink the water, but then I replace it. I can always use the candles."

Like a lot of other Floridians, Witherspoon considers a disaster kit just part of the cost of living on the coast.

"I didn't have to use it last year," she said, "so I had it for this year."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed

[JonathanBelles]

This AP article is almost as bad as today's CNN story!

[srainhoutx]

The decade has spawned some retired Hurricanes. Perhaps some folks have short memories.

[hurricanetrack]

Wow. Hard to believe anyone would temp fate like that. Insensitive too. I am sure the people of Galveston and the Bolivar are not calling it a "dud". How about folks in Haiti? Is it a dud for them too? They still have a lot to worry about. All that warm water. Geez, all that is needed is a tropical depression to park there for a day or two and it's all over for them once again. What was the CNN article? Can someone post it?

[LaBreeze]

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/storms/hurricanes/2009-09-11-hurricane-season_N.htm?csp=34

Hurricane season has been a dud

By Jennifer Kay, Associated Press Writer
MIAMI — It may be tempting the weather gods just to point this out, but this has been a dud of a hurricane season so far.
Only two hurricanes have formed in the Atlantic over the past three months, and neither hit the USA — a somewhat unusual lull.

"I'm glad that I didn't have to go out and get anything — yet," said Lissette Galiana, who was shopping at a Wal-Mart in suburban Miami on Friday, around what is usually the very peak of the Atlantic hurricane season. "There's always a chance."
Forecasters attribute the calm to a weak El Nino, the periodic warming of the central Pacific Ocean. It is producing strong upper-level winds out of the west that are shearing off the tops of thunderstorm clouds that can develop into hurricanes.

Of course, the season has nearly 2 1/2 months to go, and forecasters and emergency planners are warning people not to let their guard down, noting that powerful hurricanes have hit in the fall, including Wilma, which cut an unusually large swath of damage across Florida in October 2005.

"It's less active, but there's still possibility of a hurricane strike," said Gerry Bell, a hurricane forecaster at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center in Washington.

NOAA's forecast just before the June 1 start of the Atlantic season called for nine to 14 named tropical storms, with four to seven of them becoming hurricanes.

No tropical storms took shape until Aug. 15, when Ana formed. Five more have developed since then, including Claudette, which hit the Florida Panhandle. Two of those tropical storms strengthened into Hurricanes Bill and Fred.

Bill never came ashore in the U.S. but churned up waves blamed for at least two deaths — one in Maine, the other in Florida. Fred, meanwhile, weakened to a tropical storm Friday while it was still far out over the Atlantic.

By mid-September of last year, there had been nine tropical storms, five of them hurricanes, including Ike, which plowed into Galveston Island, Texas, on Sept. 13, Gustav, which pounded Louisiana on Sept. 1, and Dolly, which slammed South Texas in late July.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina smashed New Orleans in late August, and Hurricane Rita, the 17th named storm of the season, howled ashore near the Texas-Louisiana line on Sept. 24.

But no hurricanes at all struck the USA in 2000, 2001 or 2006. And during a less active period from 1970 to 1994, there were six seasons when no hurricanes hit this country.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency advises coastal residents to maintain kits of emergency supplies and other items that might be needed in a storm.

Venus Witherspoon of Miami keeps a disaster kit packed all year with candles, batteries, flashlights, canned food, a radio and about 10 gallons of water. She has maintained it since Wilma four years ago.

"You never know when you're going to need it," said the 54-year-old state employee. "The things you keep in there don't perish. I might drink the water, but then I replace it. I can always use the candles."

Like a lot of other Floridians, Witherspoon considers a disaster kit just part of the cost of living on the coast.

"I didn't have to use it last year," she said, "so I had it for this year."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed

Don't forget Hurricane Lili in 2002 which struck here in LA in early October.

[HURAKAN]

And I believed that I was crazy because I always want something to track. You can't never please everyone.

[gatorcane]

BTW - as she is a writer in South FL, not sure why this was written given there is still alot of September and all of October left --- those months can be big-time hurricane months for South FL typically, more so than August.

Has this writer not learned from Wilma?

[attallaman]

Anyone know what paper she writes for in FL for the AP News Service?

[attallaman]

Wow. Hard to believe anyone would temp fate like that. Insensitive too. I am sure the people of Galveston and the Bolivar are not calling it a "dud". How about folks in Haiti? Is it a dud for them too? They still have a lot to worry about. All that warm water. Geez, all that is needed is a tropical depression to park there for a day or two and it's all over for them once again. What was the CNN article? Can someone post it?

I couldn't find anything on CNN.COM about it but here's what I found on FOX NEWS.COM about it, the U.S. Coast Guard training incident story.



http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09 ... latestnews

[attallaman]

Here we go, CNN's take on yesterday's 911 Coast Guard training incident on the Potomac.


http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/09/11/potoma ... index.html

[Frank2]

Wow. Hard to believe anyone would temp fate like that. Insensitive too. I am sure the people of Galveston and the Bolivar are not calling it a "dud". How about folks in Haiti? Is it a dud for them too? They still have a lot to worry about....

I agree - she's just another one of the per usual media knotheads (is that one word or two)...

LOL

P.S. I'd have to add the folks in New Orleans and Mississippi - they're still dealing with Katrina in various ways...

[attallaman]

Anyone know what paper she writes for in FL for the AP News Service?

I did some checking and apparently she works for the Miami Herald Newspaper and she's also on Twitter as "jnkay". She was just delighted that I read her article which was picked up by the AP news service.

[vbhoutex]

Has anyone asked her to define dud? She must have just moved to S FL last week if she would write an article like that. My guess is she picked most of it off of a message board just like S2K and didn't think after or before she wrote it.

[jinftl]

I love how the reporter quotes the higher June 1 NOAA season forecast but fails to mention the updated Aug 6 NOAA forecast which was:

The outlook indicates a 70% probability for each of the following seasonal ranges: 7-11 named storms, 3-6 hurricanes, 1-2 major hurricanes, and an ACE range of 60%-110% of the median. Most of this activity is expected during the upcoming peak months (August-October) of the hurricane season.

....glad to see she is up to date on the data and forecasts. She really did her homework.

[Lurker]

BTW - as she is a writer in South FL, not sure why this was written given there is still alot of September and all of October left --- those months can be big-time hurricane months for South FL typically, more so than August.

Has this writer not learned from Wilma?

Hmmm.....I read the article was not quite stirred up as a lot of people here. If you define a dud as no land falling hurricanes hitting by the peak then yes we've seen a dud. The article makes specific reference to "not letting your guard down" and even quotes Wilma's effects on South Florida.

[jinftl]

In terms of billion dollar storms, yep, the season has been a delightful dud. In terms of numbers of storms we have actually had so far, we are actually not that far from 'average' given the climatological data.

I would actually claim that given the late start to the season, and the very low expectations most folks had, 6 named storms (2 of which were majors) in less than 30 days is actually not a dud at all. By this point in the 1992 season, there had still only been one named storm, Andrew. Bonnie formed on Sept. 17, 1992.

In his 'remainder of season outlook' yesterday, Dr. Jeff Masters mentioned shear quite possibly lowering to near normal levels across most of the basin for the 2nd half of september. He also made the following comment:

Although it is an El Niño year, and the steering current pattern will continue to be favorable for keeping most of our storms out to sea, I expect we will get a hurricane strike somewhere in the Atlantic this season that will require a disaster response.

[Lurker]

In terms of billion dollar storms, yep, the season has been a delightful dud. In terms of numbers of storms we have actually had so far, we are actually not that far from 'average' given the climatological data.

I would actually claim that given the late start to the season, and the very low expectations most folks had, 6 named storms (2 of which were majors) in less than 30 days is actually not a dud at all. By this point in the 1992 season, there had still only been one named storm, Andrew. Bonnie formed on Sept. 17, 1992.

In his 'remainder of season outlook' yesterday, Dr. Jeff Masters mentioned shear quite possibly owering to near normal levels across most of the basin for the 2nd half of september. He also made the following comment:

Although it is an El Niño year, and the steering current pattern will continue to be favorable for keeping most of our storms out to sea, I expect we will get a hurricane strike somewhere in the Atlantic this season that will require a disaster response.

Agree 100% with this post. I think we're going to see another burst of activity. The only "dud" are no hurricane strikes which the author makes clear. I didn't get an all clear message. If the author said "all clear from this point on" then I'd be upset. Numbers wise we're pretty close to average but the ACE is below normal.

[jinftl]

Graphic from NOAA shows that we are not dealing with the same amount of shear now that we were talking about in June and July in the Atlantic Basin overall......whereas the shear in early in the season was well above climatological norms, current shear has been, and continues to be, very close to the norm for this time of year. If this continues, there is no reason not to expect a typical 2nd half of the season in terms of #s, esp given that overall, sst are above normal by 0.5C to 1.0 deg C.

[Dionne]

Sitting in the closet just to the left of this desk are 4 gallons of bottled water, 2 cases of MRE's and what I call my "run bag". At my shop/office.....walking distance....is a generator, chain saw, fuel....etc., etc.

Katrina taught me a valuable lesson I will not forget.

If this season is a "dud" so far......good. Works for me.

[Frank2]

jinftl,

Here's a good page to bookmark:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/index_station.shtml

and here's the current upper air data from station 78954 (Barbados) - fairly strong west winds at 200 mb for the past few days:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/tafb/upperair/78954_u.gif