Gray "ups" his numbers to 14 NS and 8 H.

[hurricanetrack]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/200 ... usat_x.htm

Stakes are high now. Game on. If El Nino shows up, this forecast is going to bust hard. And with a -63 SOI today, who knows. But then again, I am not a forecaster and may be completey wrong. I thought Gray would lower his numbers a tad. Wrong. He "upped" them.

Don't know how many intense hurricanes he is calling for. That was not in the article. Guess I'll have to wait until it hits the CSU website.

[MWatkins]

I guess we will find out tomorrow morning, Mark.

One has to wonder a little if he's trying to grab headlines beacuse of the funding situation he's in...but I doubt it.

Other than a neutral...slight nino...looks like most of the other factors favor an active season. Remember that '95 wasn't an especially strong nina event...in fact pac temps were still a little warm coming off the 94 nino.

Gonna hit the CSU site as soon as I get up tomorrow.

MW

[gboudx]

Got this from a post on a message board from a professional New Orleans Met.

"Here's Dr. Gray and his team's latest forecast:

14 named storms
8 hurricanes
3 intense hurricanes
71% chance of U.S. strike
52% chance of East Coast/FL strike
40% chance Gulf Coast strike
Above Average Strike Chance in Caribbean

As I recall, a forecast similar to last year's forecast. Just another active year..."

[Guest]

We'll remain in a neutral enso pattern into September. After that it's anyones guess which will show it's ugly head La Nina or El Nino, but next winter looks to be very interesting at this time.
I also posted 14/8/3 last night before the show, so I guess I will bust bigtime too if El Nino shows up!!

[hurricanetrack]

I am obviously very interested in WHERE the 8 hurricanes will end up. That could make all the difference in the world. I hope to garner some kind of information out of the experts at next week's National Hurricane Conference as to what they think the upper air pattern will be this summer and early fall.

Usually, troffs=recurve and ridges=landfalls. We know that. But what we don't know is how that scenario will shape up this season.

[MWatkins]

I've done some preliminary regression analysis using datasets from 1900 to 1999, looking at rainfall averages in the 6 months leading up to hurricane season in the southeast (FL/GA/SC/AL/MS). I did that over 2 years ago and didn't get it commpleted (I'll see if I can even find it). But some raw numbers suggested SE drought in winter/spring had a correlation to landfall south of 30N along the Florida east coast and/or Gulf of Mexico.

Someone else may have already studied this...but if I can get to the data again I'll see if I can recreate those results.

MW