2012 Hurricane Season! Is here!!

[cycloneye]

Does anyone know if JB has said something about the Atlantic season? I ask because I remember that by late March of last year,he released a preview.

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/weatherb ... -4.3-1.jpg

http://www.forbes.com/sites/weatherbell/2012/04/03/damaging-hurricanes-could-impact-energy-insurance-industries-in-2012/

All that may form will be homebrown according to him. Thanks Adrian for posting it.

[CrazyC83]

I wonder if the EPAC will be exciting this year?

[cycloneye]

TSR is in the lower numbers camp with the other expert firms on this April forecast. (13/6/3)

http://www.tropicalstormrisk.com/docs/T ... pr2012.pdf

[wxman57]

TSR is actually the highest predicted numbers at 13/6/3. I don't like one of their 2 predictors - SSTs. SSTs don't correlate very well with the number of named storms in a season.


I've been doing a bit of research today with respect to ENSO and Mean Sea Level Pressure Anomaly (MSLPA) 1950-2012. The MSLPA predicted by the Euro compared with past similar seasons of MSLPA would suggest <10 named storms, 3-4 hurricanes and 0-1 majors. Quite interesting.

See:
http://home.comcast.net/~cgh57/mslpa/mslpa.html

I grabbed the MSLPA image for each year 1950-2011 and added on the Euro prediction for 2012. Going through the maps, I looked for seasons with high pressure in the Atlantic, particularly in the Gulf/Caribbean and also low pressure in the East Pac. Years similar to the 2012 prediction are:

1968, 1972, 1983, 1986, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1997

Of those, 1972 and 1997 matched the predicted pressure anomaly in the Atlantic and Pacific the best.

1968 – 8/4/0 -> 1 US hurricane landfall north of Tampa (Gladys)
1972 – 7/3/0 -> 1 US hurricane landfall east of Panama City, FL (Agnes)
1983 – 4/3/1 -> 1 US hurricane landfall Galveston (Alicia)
1986 – 6/4/0 -> 2 US hurricane landfalls, Port Arthur (Bonnie) and NC (Charley)
*1990 – 14/8/1 -> No US landfall (questionable - not the best comparison, pressure-wise)
1991 – 8/4/2 -> No US landfall
1992 – 7/4/1 -> 1 US landfall South FL and Louisiana (Andrew)
1993 – 8/3/1 -> No US landfall
1997 – 8/3/1 -> 1 US landfall in Alabama (Danny)

Average = 7.8/4/0.8

Remove 1990 and = 7/3.5/0.7


As for any relationship between El Nino, La Nina and Neutral seasons with respect to any increased probability of a US landfalling hurricane:

El Nino
21.3% of all hurricanes hit the U.S.
11.2% of all named storms hit the U.S. as hurricanes

La Nina
21.2% of all hurricanes hit the U.S.
12.1% of all named storms hit the U.S. as hurricanes

Neutral
25.8% of all hurricanes hit the U.S.
14.9% of all named storms hit the U.S. as hurricanes

La Nina + Neutral
23.6% of all hurricanes hit the U.S.
13.5% of all named storms hit the U.S. as hurricanes

I don’t see anything there to say that the U.S. is more or less likely to be hit just because of an El Nino being present. In fact, there’s no difference at all between El Nino and La Nina. Neutral seasons had more impacts per/storms. Just looking through all the seasons, it seems like ENSO status the previous year and previous winter may have had a significant impact on the upcoming season. I.E., the strong El Ninos before 1983 and 1992 (which both counted as La Nina hurricane seasons).

The Euro is predicting quite high pressures in the Atlantic this hurricane season and low pressures in the East Pac. How did the Euro do for last year? It predicted very low pressure in the Atlantic and high pressure in the East Pac, which verified nicely. The current ENSO analogs for 2012 don’t have a MSLPA similar to what is predicted.

[cycloneye]

One word "Interesting". Let's see how the season finnally pans out as all the factors do their thing.

[NDG]

Very interesting, wxman57, thanks for sharing.

[Hybridstorm_November2001]

TSR is actually the highest predicted numbers at 13/6/3. I don't like one of their 2 predictors - SSTs. SSTs don't correlate very well with the number of named storms in a season.


I've been doing a bit of research today with respect to ENSO and Mean Sea Level Pressure Anomaly (MSLPA) 1950-2012. The MSLPA predicted by the Euro compared with past similar seasons of MSLPA would suggest <10 named storms, 3-4 hurricanes and 0-1 majors. Quite interesting.

See:
http://home.comcast.net/~cgh57/mslpa/mslpa.html

I grabbed the MSLPA image for each year 1950-2011 and added on the Euro prediction for 2012. Going through the maps, I looked for seasons with high pressure in the Atlantic, particularly in the Gulf/Caribbean and also low pressure in the East Pac. Years similar to the 2012 prediction are:

1968, 1972, 1983, 1986, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1997

Of those, 1972 and 1997 matched the predicted pressure anomaly in the Atlantic and Pacific the best.

1968 – 8/4/0 -> 1 US hurricane landfall north of Tampa (Gladys)
1972 – 7/3/0 -> 1 US hurricane landfall east of Panama City, FL (Agnes)
1983 – 4/3/1 -> 1 US hurricane landfall Galveston (Alicia)
1986 – 6/4/0 -> 2 US hurricane landfalls, Port Arthur (Bonnie) and NC (Charley)
*1990 – 14/8/1 -> No US landfall (questionable - not the best comparison, pressure-wise)
1991 – 8/4/2 -> No US landfall
1992 – 7/4/1 -> 1 US landfall South FL and Louisiana (Andrew)
1993 – 8/3/1 -> No US landfall
1997 – 8/3/1 -> 1 US landfall in Alabama (Danny)

Average = 7.8/4/0.8

Remove 1990 and = 7/3.5/0.7


As for any relationship between El Nino, La Nina and Neutral seasons with respect to any increased probability of a US landfalling hurricane:

El Nino
21.3% of all hurricanes hit the U.S.
11.2% of all named storms hit the U.S. as hurricanes

La Nina
21.2% of all hurricanes hit the U.S.
12.1% of all named storms hit the U.S. as hurricanes

Neutral
25.8% of all hurricanes hit the U.S.
14.9% of all named storms hit the U.S. as hurricanes

La Nina + Neutral
23.6% of all hurricanes hit the U.S.
13.5% of all named storms hit the U.S. as hurricanes

I don’t see anything there to say that the U.S. is more or less likely to be hit just because of an El Nino being present. In fact, there’s no difference at all between El Nino and La Nina. Neutral seasons had more impacts per/storms. Just looking through all the seasons, it seems like ENSO status the previous year and previous winter may have had a significant impact on the upcoming season. I.E., the strong El Ninos before 1983 and 1992 (which both counted as La Nina hurricane seasons).

The Euro is predicting quite high pressures in the Atlantic this hurricane season and low pressures in the East Pac. How did the Euro do for last year? It predicted very low pressure in the Atlantic and high pressure in the East Pac, which verified nicely. The current ENSO analogs for 2012 don’t have a MSLPA similar to what is predicted.

Hurricane Bob made a US landfall, as a category 2, on the NE coast in 1991.

[brunota2003]

wxman, the best relationships for hurricane landfalls (vs. el nino, la nina, and neutral) are the states, themselves...granted, Florida "wins" (or loses, depending on how you look at it) it all

[gigabite]

I am using 1970 and 1976 as analog years, because of the relative position to the current astronomic tidal flow. The Tropical Storm Count is identical with the exception of the effect of high low wind shear. How does Atlantic High Pressure affect wind shear?

[cycloneye]

I am using 1970 and 1976 as analog years, because of the relative position to the current astronomic tidal flow. The Tropical Storm Count is identical with the exception of the effect of high low wind shear. How does Atlantic High Pressure affect wind shear?

But you have in the poll 16/6/2,more active than those two years that you mentioned.

[gigabite]

That is my technology multiplier for 2012. It is 1.583. The multiplier I am using this year is 2011's actual count divided by my 2011 guess. Multiplier is probably large. There were other things at play last year. This year the size of the Earths orbit compared to the diameter of the Sun is 75% of 1970, which means that there should be more high pressure than in 1970 and maybe fewer storms. The high low level shear was small in 1970 and there were more landfalls, thus the question. How does Atlantic High Pressure affect high low wind shear?

The tropical storm database is over 100 years old, but the completeness of it is limited to the data collection ability of the specific year of the specific storm. My technique was producing a guess that was around +/- 80% right until April 2010, when GOES-13 replaced GOES-12 as GOES-East at 75° West. GOES 13 has innovative technology that allows post processed imagery to distinguish upper lever clouds from lower level circulations and has pushed the tropical cyclone count per year up. The technology does not seem to have had an effect on the hurricane or major hurricane count. There was an article posted recently that talked about a revision to the definition of a tropical cyclone and that may put the whammy to this fix of mine. We will just have to wait and see.

[cycloneye]

No changes in general to the higher pressures for the Atlantic Basin by ECMWF in this April update. But I see a small change from the March update to this April one and is in the GOM and Western Caribbean,where less dense reds and oranges appear there. And the EPAC looks more blue in April than in March,and that means more Tropical Cyclone activity in that basin will occur. See March and April updates below.

March Update



April Update

[CrazyC83]

My EPAC prediction right now: 18/10/5, with 4 landfalling storms

[Kingarabian]

Hopefully we have something related to Flossie of 2007 and Felicia of 2009 again.

[Ptarmigan]

My EPAC prediction right now: 18/10/5, with 4 landfalling storms

Sometimes East Pacific hurricanes can cause flooding in Texas like Paul (1982), Rosa (1994), and Lester and Madeline (1998).

[MGC]

Key will be how strong El Nino gets. Stronger El Nino = stronger upper level winds = less named systems......MGC

[weatherwindow]

wxman, thanks for the analysis.....given the forecast mslp and sstas and your selection of analog years for them, it brought to mind a question concerning the thermohaline circulation(THC) and the AMO. accoring to grey et al, the length of the warm phase of the AMO varies very roughly between 25 and 40 years. the last cool phase began roughly 1970 and ended prior to the beginning of the 1995 hurricane season. the forecast conditions are similiar to those extant during the last cool phase and the bulk of the analog selections are cool phase seasons. if this forecast verifies, is it possible that we are, in fact, entering the next cool phase instead of experiencing an anomalous season within the current warm phase which began in 1995 and is ongoing. if we are on the cusp of the next cool phase, the latest warm phase lasted an atypically short 16 years. imho, this is an interesting possibility with a potentially dramatic impact on the next couple of decades' seasons. any thoughts?

[cycloneye]

Another forecast comes out and this one is from TWC. They have 11/6/2 citing as the two main factors the cooler waters in the Atlantic and the development of El Nino.

http://www.weather.com/weather/hurrican ... 2012-04-24

[ROCK]

I think the EURO forecast for above average mslp is just that a forecast. Rememer last year this same time the EURO was seeing lower pressures and we didnt exactly blow the lid off with development. There was a lot of stable air out there in the MDR that hampered a lot of storms. Now we are seeing the EURO slowly backing off its high mslp forecast. IMO, we might see a 1-2 rise in numbers if it keeps trending this way. JMO, I think I stated this is my poll numbers.

[Ptarmigan]

I think the EURO forecast for above average mslp is just that a forecast. Rememer last year this same time the EURO was seeing lower pressures and we didnt exactly blow the lid off with development. There was a lot of stable air out there in the MDR that hampered a lot of storms. Now we are seeing the EURO slowly backing off its high mslp forecast. IMO, we might see a 1-2 rise in numbers if it keeps trending this way. JMO, I think I stated this is my poll numbers.

We can't accurately forecast months in advance. Even in El Nino years, we have had active years like 1969 and 2004.