2014 hurricane season forecasts

[ROCK]

Appears safe? (ninel conde) Please do us all a favor STOP with these erational posts. You are aware major hurricanes CAN occur even in the strongest of el ninos? Numbers predicted arent important all it takes is 1 were YOU live.

thats always a possibilty, however, we are now seeing what i expected for yet another season. the heat, drought and ridge is once again setting up over texas meaning a protective nw flow over the east coast and GOM.

this is great news...I can relax now and not worry this season. For we are all safe from a phantom ridge over Texas once again.

Maybe you should wait for it to develop before assuming anything?

[Ptarmigan]

Appears safe? (ninel conde) Please do us all a favor STOP with these erational posts. You are aware major hurricanes CAN occur even in the strongest of el ninos? Numbers predicted arent important all it takes is 1 were YOU live.

thats always a possibilty, however, we are now seeing what i expected for yet another season. the heat, drought and ridge is once again setting up over texas meaning a protective nw flow over the east coast and GOM.

this is great news...I can relax now and not worry this season. For we are all safe from a phantom ridge over Texas once again.

Maybe you should wait for it to develop before assuming anything?

I think El Nino could actually charge up the atmosphere and make it more favorable for tropical development as the atmosphere lately has been dry. El Nino seasons are more likely to see homegrown storms, which increase chance for landfall.

[CaliforniaResident]

Now that this El Nino is appearing to be super strong again, I'll reclaim my prediction that the most significant U.S. tropical cyclone impact of 2014 will be where people least expect it.

[ninel conde]

Now that this El Nino is appearing to be super strong again, I'll reclaim my prediction that the most significant U.S. tropical cyclone impact of 2014 will be where people least expect it.

michigan? sts on lake michigan?

[gigabite]

It seems like Southern California is still in a drought, so that means the El Niño hasn't really kicked in. The CPC talks about this named anomaly in terms of years.

[hurricaneCW]

So what is the cause of the below normal to well below normal instability levels. Does it have anything to do with climate change?

[gigabite]

Hurricane frequency in terms of the Kline Rate in my opinion would be a factor of the accelerated evaporation rate caused by the moon. If the New Moon spends more time over the desert then global atmospheric moisture is low.

[tolakram]

Hurricane frequency in terms of the Kline Rate in my opinion would be a factor of the accelerated evaporation rate caused by the moon. If the New Moon spends more time over the desert then global atmospheric moisture is low.

Do you have a link to this Kline Rate theory?

[gigabite]

Hurricane frequency in terms of the Kline Rate in my opinion would be a factor of the accelerated evaporation rate caused by the moon. If the New Moon spends more time over the desert then global atmospheric moisture is low.

Do you have a link to this Kline Rate theory?

It is the same as the lapse rate. I use 7.3C to weigh clouds. It is the temperature profile of the atmosphere. Maybe it is a derivative of thermocline. The question was about the lack of instability over a season. A warm moist parcel of air keeps rising a warm dry parcel of air has no potential.

[gigabite]

New Moon Positions 2014 Hurricane Seasion

[gigabite]

New Moon at Aphelion Since 2000

This map shows that 9 of the last 15 years the New Moon has been lingering over land at Aphelion. 8 of those years were over the Sahara Desert. There may be a density issue that brings it back there.

[Ntxw]

April just came out with another negative AMO reading making it the fourth consecutive month, a little stronger than March (-0.058) at -0.071.

[Ntxw]

Still not much improvement with the start of season less than a month away. What does it take to get this up? The passage of a modest MJO only rose it up a little.

[ninel conde]

Still not much improvement with the start of season less than a month away. What does it take to get this up? The passage of a modest MJO only rose it up a little.

http://i60.tinypic.com/34ifcq9.gif

im starting to think the graph is broken, lol. nothing gets it above normal.

[tolakram]

Still not much improvement with the start of season less than a month away. What does it take to get this up? The passage of a modest MJO only rose it up a little.

http://i60.tinypic.com/34ifcq9.gif

im starting to think the graph is broken, lol. nothing gets it above normal.

Funny thing is, they changed the scale just before last year, and since then it's been way below normal, but I think the scale might be exaggerated or just wrong.

There are some other charts that might be more meaningful and that also show a very hostile environment in the tropical atlantic.

First off, on the older archive pages, they had a better explanation of how they screened out areas where no tropical development was expected.

SCREENING STEP:
Maximum climatological SST < 21 degree C
Latitude < 5 degrees north
Areas that are 100% over land
Areas that already contain a tropical cyclone
850 hPa Circulation < -5 kt
Vertical Shear > 65 kt
Vertical Instability < -8 degrees C
GOES cold pixel count = 0%
GOES brightness temperature > -23 degrees C


Now here is what I don't get. This is the archive of instability for the tropical atlantic in 2011.



Look at the normal line. It goes from a minimum of, say, -7.5C to a maximum of +4C. So why the change?

if we were using this scale then for may we are close to slightly below normal.

[Alyono]

I'd watch the NW Caribbean. Have very high OCH in that part of the basin. Wonder if the warmer OHC values will displace the el niño shear farther east, into the tropical Atlantic. Usually, it is the Caribbean that is destroyed by shear in el niños. However, the high OHC should lead to increased vertical motions there, maybe displacing the Walker Circulation a bit east

[chaser1]

I'd watch the NW Caribbean. Have very high OCH in that part of the basin. Wonder if the warmer OHC values will displace the el niño shear farther east, into the tropical Atlantic. Usually, it is the Caribbean that is destroyed by shear in el niños. However, the high OHC should lead to increased vertical motions there, maybe displacing the Walker Circulation a bit east

My guess would be that such warmer values over the NW Caribbean (if they were to persist) would cause minimal if any neutralizing impact to a moderate or strong El Nino and it's accompanied strong upper level westerlies, as it applies to overall upper level conditions for the Central & Eastern Tropical Atlantic. However the wrinkle that I can see from this set up (and somewhat dependent of the variable Eastern Conus long-wave pattern) would be a split flow created by somewhat more upper level anticyclonic flow over parts of the NW Caribbean, perhaps Eastern Gulf, and near the Bahamas. Such conditions might somewhat aid vertical development for tropical cyclones close in to the S.E. US/Bahamas region. I suppose strong low latitude westerlies would still split off south continuing across the tropics, while a northern split caused by a quasi-permanent UL Anticyclone in the region, would exacerbate and feed into an already strong West Atlantic TUTT a few hundred miles east of the CONUS. Such a set-up would not necessarily preclude landfall risk for the Atlantic Seaboard. I do think that this set up would deflect most threats approaching from the East & Southeast, but "home-grown" development West of 70W or so may well allow a TS or Hurricane to still move NW to North potentially threatening any point along the E. Seaboard (regardless whether a strong storm or simply sheared systems causing rain & flooding events more than wind impact).

This kind of set up has already been alluded to by others, and is how i'm anticipating the season to develop. A lot of pretty "nity-gritty" details would still ultimately dictate whether the US, Bahamas, & Bermuda might be impacted by 3-5 systems this year, or none at all and whether one or two might be moderate or strong, or all sheared messes.

[ninel conde]

here is an interesting story.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2 ... a/9000343/

shows really well the incredible 9 year long east coast trof. everything im seeing this year indicates the exact same thing with a stron neg NAO, powerful azores high and once a again a bermuda high nowhere to be found. i cant see how some people are concerned about in close developments.

[wxman57]

Concerning those instability graphics and the scale on the left - there was a change made last year. The following is from an email exchange with Andrea Schumacher at Colorado State:

Last fall, NESDIS replaced the TCFP with a global version. In doing so, the sub-basin boundaries changed slightly in order to accommodate the larger domain, which in turn has changed the sub-basin averages. I see how this can make year-to-year comparisons tricky.

Andrea

[tolakram]

here is an interesting story.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2 ... a/9000343/

shows really well the incredible 9 year long east coast trof. everything im seeing this year indicates the exact same thing with a stron neg NAO, powerful azores high and once a again a bermuda high nowhere to be found. i cant see how some people are concerned about in close developments.

Good article, and the trough gets a graphic! People are concerned because persistent troughs are not there 24/7, they are just more common, which reduces but does not eliminate the odds of a hit. If anything it's the attitude that the coast is protected that will lead to more deaths because more people are caught off guard. It's all percentages, not on/off.

...

Ok, I think this sums up my thoughts on major hurricane hits.

Hurricane Ike battered the Texas coast in 2008, killing at least 112 people and doing $27 billion in damage, but it missed the "major" hurricane label by 1 mph when it slammed ashore with winds of 110 mph.

We make up a scale, we miss a category by 1mph, and we call it a record. Just seems kind of silly, and magnifies the problem with using a single measurement to define a hurricane.

Also thanks wxman for the instability graphics info.