Hurricane forecasters: El Niño weakening, which could lead to more storms

Post 8:47 PM EDT, March 31, 2010

ORLANDO Forecasters and emergency managers, meeting this week at the National Hurricane Conference, are used to dealing with downed power lines, flooded streets and smashed homes. This year's challenge: complacency.

 

It's been five years since Wilma struck South Florida and Katrina hit the state before devastating the Gulf Coast. The 2009 season was the quietest in a dozen years. If people aren't paying attention, don't blame the prognosticators. The Colorado State University team of William Gray and Phil Klotzbach is set to issue an updated forecast next week.

 

In November, the team predicted a "well above average" 2010 season, with 11 to 16 named storms, 6 to 8 hurricanes and 3 to 5 major hurricanes. And on March 11, AccuWeather.com called for 16 to 18 tropical storms, with seven making landfall somewhere between Maine and Texas. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will issue its forecast May 20.

 

At the conference's opening session Wednesday, National Hurricane Center Director Bill Read credited the quiet 2009 season to El Niño, the pattern of warm Pacific waters that tends to hinder tropical storm formation. But with the hurricane season set to start on June 1, El Niño is showing signs of weakening, which could mean more storms.

 

Colorado State's Klotzbach told the conference that computer models suggest "El Niño, which is our friend and kept hurricane activity down last summer, will be gone by June or July." And, Read said, "Make no mistake. The cold water you see in the Gulf of Mexico, when the big microwave in the sky starts working on it in June and July, we should see plenty of activity."

 

Read noted that track forecast accuracy has improved by half in the past 15 years. Perhaps as early as the middle of the decade, he said, "We're going to have the skill and the models that we're going to be able to issue a seven-day forecast." But he said improvements in forecasting intensity remain low and "there's no improvement in sight." Read also said the hurricane center is thinking about adding to its list of warnings one for storm surge. He said some areas, because they're low lying or heavily populated, might not be under a hurricane warning but might still be vulnerable to a surge. The hurricane center won't decide for at least two years, Read said. Of all the Atlantic seaboard, Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast are least vulnerable to storm surge.

 

Read's top concern for this hurricane season: a storm striking Haiti, already leveled by a January earthquake. "God forbid a major hurricane rolled across when we had this many people in a distressed state," he said.