Hurricane season forecast blows hot, cold

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In our world of polarized government and polarized media, where everything is just a matter of somebody’s opinion, we can at least count on the annual hurricane forecasts, can’t we?
Maybe not. The predictions are blowing hot and cold.
The widely quoted annual forecast from Colorado State University, released Thursday, says we can expect an above-average number of hurricanes in 2018. A relatively new player on the scene predicts a below-average amount of tropical activity.
Let’s go first to the Rocky Mountains, where the late meteorologist William Gray turned Colorado State University into a center of tropical cyclone research.
Colorado State predicts 14 named storms in the Atlantic Basin, which includes the Gulf Coast, in 2018. The prediction says seven of those storms will reach hurricane strength, and three will be Category 3 or stronger, with sustained winds of at least 111 mph.
That’s fewer storms than the 2017 season, when hurricanes Harvey and Maria caused damage and suffering that persist even now.
The chance of a hurricane strike somewhere on the Gulf Coast is 38 percent, which is higher than the 30 percent average.
Colorado State’s storm forecasters blame the predicted upswing on warm oceanic temperatures and a relatively low chance of El Niño formation. El Niño is a periodic increase in Pacific water temperatures, which can create west-to-east wind patterns that tend to suppress hurricanes in our part of the world.
It’s worth noting that a period of frequent El Niño weather made the 1990s a quiet time for Gulf Coast hurricanes. When El Niño calmed down 2001-2008, south Louisiana was hit by Tropical Storm Allison’s massive flooding and hurricanes Lily, Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike.
El Niño patterns are no guarantee of safety, of course. Two of the most dangerous hurricanes ever, Audrey in 1957 and Andrew in 1992, happened in El Niño years.
Another forecast is out there, too, this one from the Climate Forecast Application Network. The network’s forecast is based on what it calls “five-fold variations in the Accumulated Cyclone Energy.”
The network said 2017, with its 17 named storms and multiple Category 5 hurricanes, was the most active since 2005. And the same yardstick says 2018 will be below average.
There’s a touch of climate politics in all of this.
Generally, climate science says humanity’s contribution to the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is changing the climate. Manmade climate change is supposed to make hurricanes more frequent and intense.
Judith Curry, a professor at Georgia Tech, disagrees, at least with the degree to which human activity is contributing to climate change. Her research led to the creation of the Climate Forecast Application Network.
That alone would make her a controversial figure in today’s scientific community. The fact that the network is a private company that works with the energy industry, generally no fan of anthropogenic climate change theories, doesn’t help.
Neither did a Wall Street Journal interview in which Curry was quoted as saying Colorado State’s much-venerated Gray, who died in 2016, suffered from “brain fossilization.” Curry insisted in an interview with the E&E News website that she had been misquoted.
In any case, Curry’s views are harder to dismiss than others who have been labeled climate change skeptics.
And her view is that the climate picture is far more uncertain than mainstream climate science lets on.
Regardless of the forecast, people in hurricane-prone areas like ours should prepare for the June 1-Nov. 30 tropical weather season, advises Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State.
“It’s like trying to pick who’s going to win the NCAA tournament in the first round,” Klotzbach told Jenny Staletovich of the Miami Herald. “Your odds are a lot higher in the Final Four.”
Ask Virginia, which played 16th-seeded University of Maryland-Baltimore County in the NCAA first round this year.
Virginia got blown away.
Bill Decker is managing editor of The Daily Review. Reach him at 985-384-8370.