2009 Atlantic Seasonal Hurricane Forecast

[Randall Marable]

Dr. Gray and Dr. Klotzbach have released their first forecast for the 2009 Hurricane Season:


"We foresee a somewhat above-average Atlantic basin tropical cyclone season in 2009. We anticipate an above-average probability of United States major hurricane landfall..."

http://hurricane.atmos.colostate.edu/Forecasts/

 

[John Olexa]

Looks very similar to 08... And 07.....

 

[Dennis Dennison]

I looked at the PDf, I was going to put this out anyway-might as well do it now.

I predict 13 named storms and 6 making landfall of which 2 will be Cat 5, 1 Cat 4 and
2 Cat 3 levels storms. # will be East Coast of Florida, and the other 3 will come up into the Gulf.

 

[Matt Gingery]

Yeah, I actually agree with Dennis on his prediction. Not sure whether his reasoning is sea surface forecasts, or climatolagy. Personally, I follow the climatological patterns, and the fact we are going into another La Nina leads me to believe that this next season should be close to the amount of named storms we have seen in recent years, however I don't feel that this La Nina is bluffing like the one in recent past where it looked like it was coming in and quickly reversed. We should have impacts in the U.S., but none matching that of last year, likely 13-15 total storms, and 4 majors, 6-8 hurricanes. 3 U.S. landfalls. Troughy U.S. weather may block and disturb the pattern out in the Atlantic this season. All forecasts will absolutely need to be revised in May, just in case this La Nina is a bluff too.

 

[Ed Schoenborn]

If I am not mistaken there has been no ENSO since the last La Nina. How common is it to have a new La Nina with no ENSO since the last one?

 

[Brad Nelson]

If I am not mistaken there has been no ENSO since the last La Nina. How common is it to have a new La Nina with no ENSO since the last one?

It is fairly common to see La Nina or El Nino events strengthen, then become neutral and then strengthen again without changing to the other. Periods of ENSO events can strengthen and weaken sometimes as long as 5-7 years before changing. Some events can last less than a year.

As for this season, it seem to be in agreement as to a weak La Nina year to almost neutral. This should favor an above normal year in regards to hurricane activity in the Atlantic, especially since we're still in the early phases of an Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation of warmer than average Atlantic waters. Still, I don't think we'll have as many storms as last year as that was a stronger La Nina year. I think we had at one point 7 consecutive named storms that impacted the U.S. coastline! That's really unprecedented to my knowledge.

 

[Mike Davis]

Tropical Prediction of Gray/Klotzbach

This early in the season, we have to honestly look at Gray/Klotzback's actual rate of accuracy.

They have predicted higher than normal for a long time.

 

[Stuart Robinson]

Persoanlly I am not sure how much faith we can actually put into long range forecasting of hurricanes - but I admire Gray and Co for at least having a go.

We all recall that both 06 and 07 were forecast as "above adverage" but as we know they were down years - 2005 was extreame - never to be repeated, and this was not picked up in the forecast.

I am not slating Grey and his team - just that we need to take an objective view. with all things being "correct" 2009 will produce hurricanes - but it only takes a prolonged pattern of shear over the Atlantic during September to make the season above / below adverage - and this is some thing that we can only resolve come late August.