Category5Kaiju wrote:wxman57 wrote:cajungal wrote:I see that SE Louisiana is in the red again. Finally got new roof last month. But still need to do the rest of the interior of the house. So praying for no more
I wouldn't get too excited about such landfall predictions. They're basically guesses based on where storms made landfall based on conditions that exist pre-season and (sometimes bad) predictions of what will be going on by Aug/Sep. It's particularly difficult to predict Gulf activity a long way out. Klotzbach and I have talked about this a number of times. We can kind of get a feel of how the MDR might be, but the Gulf is a different animal. I'll be seeing Phil at the NTWC in S. Padre in early April then at the NHC the following week.
Even if activity is above normal this year (seems likely), the Gulf could be quiet if the MDR is more active (early recurves).
Just curious, but what factors exactly do these sorts of forecasts base their landfall risk zones on? From my understanding, isn't it extraordinarily early to tell anything in terms of land impacts?
Higher risk areas can be based upon a combination of season analogs and regions where conditions may be more favorable for development during the season. It's just a little more than a guess, but not much more. For example, it looks like the MDR may be less hostile than it has been since 2017, when the east Caribbean islands were hit hard. This could mean an increased risk to the Lesser Antilles to the Dominican Republic than in more recent years. Analog years suggest an increased risk to the southeast U.S. However, it all comes down to steering currents when and where a storm forms.