Hammy wrote:Category5Kaiju wrote:aspen wrote:Perhaps something is changing with the global base state that’ll continue into 2022. Does anyone know how the THC is doing? I know THC collapse gets tossed around all the time and never happens, but with such an abnormal lull in activity that defies climo, it’s for once not totally out of the question.
From my understanding, one could not have predicted a 2013 given how 2012 finished off, with major strength cyclones and fair amounts of activity seen in all 3 NH basins in October (in other words, 2012 ended and behaved like a typical year would have). The best analog I can think of for what we are seeing now is 2007, and even then activity was fairly decent in the WPAC while the EPAC and Atlantic were quiet. 2008 of course turned out to be a very active Atlantic year, with the WPAC and EPAC being below average but featuring their fair share of powerful storms. I think it's too early to say that what we are seeing now is going to lead to a 2013 repeat next year, and especially with individual hurricane/typhoon season behavior, because each year is so unique in the sequence of storms, their strengths, where they hit, etc., historical seasons can only go so far in serving as useful predictions for what to expect exactly in future seasons.
I think it is also important to understand that a THC collapse as severe and unexpected as 2013 should not be expected to occur during any given year. The way I see it is that the conditions that caused 2013 to occur were highly unique and fortuitious, and imho saying in a given year that another 2005 will happen or that another 2013 will happen are just things one should never say given how unlikely such extreme events are to occur in the first place in any year.
Regarding the THC collapse, it's best not to use it as a prediction tool, and really impossible to determine 8-10 months out if it'll be a factor in next hurricane season. However it's a good question to ask as far as present conditions go--in 2013 it occurred during springtime, and had continuing effects into summer. I don't know what the SST pattern was that related to that, rather than other cycles, nor do I know where to find archival SST maps for this year, but it's certainly something that should would warrant after the fact investigating, especially given one of the more noticeable things outside of hurricane activity was the upper air pattern and fronts not matching with the seasons.
From what I can remember, one glaring, unusual sst profile of the Atlantic in 2013 was how warm the subtropics were compared to the deep tropics; in fact, weren't you active on Storm2k when 2013 occurred? I myself joined in 2020 so I wonder what it must have been like to be on this forum tracking one of the worst and most unexpectedly underperforming seasons of all time