CSU says 2/1/0 remain for season in Oct update

[Windsurfer_NYC]

The October update can be found here:

HTML version: http://typhoon.atmos.colostate.edu/fore ... 6/oct2006/
PDF version: http://typhoon.atmos.colostate.edu/fore ... ct2006.pdf

Our October-only forecast calls for 2 named storms, 1 hurricane, 0 major hurricanes and NTC activity of 12 which is below the October-only average value of 18. We forecast no tropical cyclone activity in November. Our below-average prediction for October-November activity is largely due to the rapid emergence of an El Niño event during the latter part of this summer.

Edited to show CSU link update

[Sanibel]

The blob over Panama is from an active Amazonian ITCZ that is currently far south enough to be oriented more towards EPAC than the Caribbean. If you could lift it slightly I think it could spawn a cyclone in the Caribbean.

[cycloneye]

It is difficult to attribute this sudden warming to one particular cause, but we believe that intense, long-lived Hurricane Ioke which developed in the central Pacific on August 20 and tracked slowly westward across the central and eastern Pacific was an important contributor to the dramatic transition from neutral to El Niño conditions. Ioke caused strong westerly anomalies to develop at low latitudes near the dateline. These westerlies drove the warm anomalies in the western and central Pacific eastward.

Above is a part of the report that talks about the cause of el nino to form more rapidly than anticipated.

[Windsurfer_NYC]

I wonder how the MJO pulse forecasted to hit the Gulf and Caribbean in mid-October figures into their thinking:

http://www.icess.ucsb.edu/asr/MJO/MJO.forecast.olr.png

Will the MJO convection be countered by ENSO shear and result in only 2 storms?

[Jim Hughes]

I still can not fathom how they are blaming Ioke for triggering this El Nino. The subsurafce was pointing toward this event well before Ioke even formed. This tells me they have a good deal to learn about the ENSO phases.

[CrazyC83]

I think that 5/3/1 will be the total for the remainder of the season:

October - 3/2/1

November - 1/1/0

December - 1/0/0

[Cyclenall]

I think that 2/0/0 will be the total for the remainder of the lame 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Season:

October - 1/0/0

November - 1/0/0

December - 0/0/0

[MGC]

Yea Jim this is the first that I've heard of a TC triggering a El Nino event. Kind of big butterfly. We might see one more system. The UL winds are a screaming over most of the basin......MGC

[gilbert88]

There's still time for a bad storm to form. I don't think 2006 will go by without a name retirement.

Not that I wish for it, but it's better to be aware.

[Frank2]

We'll see what happens, but, even any favorable conditions will be only of a short duration before another deep trough enters the Gulf and Florida (which has been happening every 5-7 days since early September), so, the "October maximum" hopefully will pass without anything of significance forming...

Frank

[senorpepr]

I think that 2/0/0 will be the total for the remainder of the lame 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Season:

October - 1/0/0

November - 1/0/0

December - 0/0/0

You consider slightly above average to be lame?

Mind you that this year's Net Tropical Cyclone Index is slightly above 100% already.

[Swimdude]

Y'all, can we all just admit for once that this season has been AWESOME compared to last year?

Think about what would've happened if this El Nino hadn't emerged. Think of what may've happened if another major hurricane had entered the GOM this year.

Chaos.

Sure, I'll call 2006 a lame season... Compared to the last two years. But I'll never been so happy to see storms go out to sea without affecting any homes or any lives.

If this is a lame season, then may the next ten years be just as lame.

[Frank2]

I couldn't agree more, even though I'm one who enjoys a good thunderstorm - last night, there was a news story concerning the criminal changes lodged against the owner of the bus that burst into flames on a Texas interstate, during the Hurricane Rita evacuation - 24 elderly passengers burned to death, with little or nothing that could be done to save them, due to the horrific traffic jam that the bus was caught up in at the time.

Sure, the accident could have likely been avoided with better maintenance by the bus owner, but, it was the entire crisis situation that caused the mass panic and evacuation in the first place.

Since the board is near empty at this time, I'll take a minute here to mention the difference between what we "enjoy" and reality - one of my favorite television programs is MASH, but, aside from silly Hawkeye Pierce and dumb Frank Burns, the reality is that the Korean War was terrible, and, one night as an ER volunteer, I made the mistake of mentioning this show to an on-call ER surgeon - who was a young MASH surgeon during the Korean War.

His dead-serious response is one I still think of - "It was horrible".

We all enjoy weather, and, love to see the wind blow, but, the horror it can create, as in the bus fire in Texas or in the reality of a war, is something that we should never hope to see...

Frank

[LarryWx]

Lili became a TD on 9/21, a TS on 9/22, and a H on 9/30. Although it hit LA on 10/3, it is considered a Sep. storm by many, including myself.

There have been zero NS since 1950 that FIRST BECAME A TD AFTER 9/30 (Lili of 2002 became a TD on 9/21) that later became a MH during an El Nino year (17 years: 1951, 1957, 1963, 1965, 1968, 1969, 1972, 1976, 1977, 1982, 1986, 1987, 1991, 1994, 1997, 2002, 2004). I'd say that based on El Nino stats, Dr. Gray and co. are making a good call on going with no more MH's.Lili became a TD on 9/21, a TS on 9/22, and a H on 9/30. Although it hit LA on 10/3, it is considered a Sep. storm by many, including myself.

However, that doesn't mean a MH can't still form. The stats just tell me the odds are pretty low. Based on my own research, I believe there have actually been a couple of MH that formed in El Nino years prior to 1950 although none hit the US at that strength.

[Cyclenall]

I think that 2/0/0 will be the total for the remainder of the lame 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Season:

October - 1/0/0

November - 1/0/0

December - 0/0/0

You consider slightly above average to be lame?

Mind you that this year's Net Tropical Cyclone Index is slightly above 100% already.

Slightly above average can be lame too. If we don't have any other named storm this year, then it won't be slightly above average.

[Jim Hughes]

Yea Jim this is the first that I've heard of a TC triggering a El Nino event. Kind of big butterfly. We might see one more system. The UL winds are a screaming over most of the basin......MGC

There are many facets to the EL Nino besides SST's and even subsurface condtions. So I could understand this comment more if they said that it may have helped it's cause.

There August 3rd update also is questionable in regards to to what they thought was ocurring. Their number 3 scheme factor for the month of August was the El Nino 3.0 June-July index. It favored increased activity but they also state in the introduction-abstract part about rising SST's in the EPAC.

Now this is a different area but it also suggests changes were underway. So they might have thought that La Nina conditions were going to persist but this just tells me that they disregarded certain elements because of historical climatology. And they also paid to much attention to the models.

Maybe I am just to hard on some organizations but I find it hard to believe in this day and age, and with all their big budgets, that we are still relying on these models to forecast something that they have never really been able to forecast anyway.