What has caused the ACE to be low?

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

What has caused the "ACE" level of energy to be as low as 2002 if not lower? What is causing the pattern that is killing everything that is not near land. I just went to know why.

[RL3AO]

A lot of short lived, weak storms. Barry, Chantal, Erin, Gabby, Ingrid, and Jerry. Even Humberto and Lorenzo only had a combined ACE of 2.52 despite being half of the seasons hurricanes.

[CrazyC83]

A lot of short lived, weak storms. Barry, Chantal, Erin, Gabby, Ingrid, and Jerry. Even Humberto and Lorenzo only had a combined ACE of 2.52 despite being half of the seasons hurricanes.

ACE and storm numbers don't always correlate well. 1990 had at least 14 tropical storms, yet it had an ACE of 91. Meanwhile 1950 had 13 known storms and an ACE of 243.

[RL3AO]

A lot of short lived, weak storms. Barry, Chantal, Erin, Gabby, Ingrid, and Jerry. Even Humberto and Lorenzo only had a combined ACE of 2.52 despite being half of the seasons hurricanes.

ACE and storm numbers don't always correlate well. 1990 had at least 14 tropical storms, yet it had an ACE of 91. Meanwhile 1950 had 13 known storms and an ACE of 243.

Number of storms are overrated IMO. ACE, landfalls, and number of major hurricanes should be the main stats.

[WindRunner]

A lot of short lived, weak storms. Barry, Chantal, Erin, Gabby, Ingrid, and Jerry. Even Humberto and Lorenzo only had a combined ACE of 2.52 despite being half of the seasons hurricanes.

Karen was technically a hurricane for six, possibly twelve hours per the updated ATCF files . . . after that comment in the disco about being a hurricane briefly, I believe they went back and modified the files to show that she was a hurricane for two of the points. It does create a dsicrepency between their advisories and their records, but the ATCF files are the supposed to serve as the official real-time source.

[americanrebel]

So what is the ACE score right now?

What are the ACE scores for the last 5 years before this year?

[Weatherfreak000]

This is an irrelevant discussion, I don't see why your so persistent on this ACE issue.

Why? Shear dominates the Atlantic.

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

I'm starting to feel that the ACE level is a more important seasonal activity scale then number of named storms. That is why.

[Honeyko]

You can't count on ACE too much either. For instance, Hurricane Allen and Hurricane Georges had vastly different ACE merely because Georges near parallel track (to Allen) was just north enough to smack all the islands of the Greater Antilles, while Allen squeaked by everything. But 1980 wasn't a more "active" year just because Allen managed to stay cat-5 for so long due to not hitting anything

[KWT]

I think there probably will be enough left in the tank for us to beat 2002 though unless we have a longer lasting system then what we've been seeing reecntly 2006 may not be all that easy to reach, though the ACE will probably be upped slightly post season.

[RL3AO]

And since you asked:

2002: 66 (12, 4, 2)
2003: 175 (16, 7, 3)
2004: 225 (14, 9, 6)
2005: 248 (28, 15, 7)
2006: 79 (10, 5, 2)
2007: 60 (12, 4, 2)

*doesn't include subtropical storms.

[Ptarmigan]

Allen was a Category 5 hurricane and did not interact with land as much even though it did impact those islands. Georges made multiple landfalls, which would weaken it, I believe 6 in all, so the ACE was lower than Allen. Also, Georges at his peak was a Category 4 hurricane. ACE does correlated with number of named storms, but however, that's not always the case. 1950 had 13 storms and has a high ACE because of 8 major hurricanes formed that year. ACE favors stronger and longer lasting hurricanes. That's why Ivan, San Ciricao, and Donna have high ACEs. One can have a really strong hurricane, but have a low ACE because it is a short lived hurricane.

[Honeyko]

It's arguable that both of the storms were just as "active" as the other, as both were very large systems in geographical coverage; however Allen has a hugely greater ACE merely due to avoiding intervening landfalls.