A Higher Than Normal Hurricane Season This Year

[conachair]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

As far as I remember, at least three big research centers predicted a horrible season last year. As far as I remember, they turned out to be way off in their predictions.

What is it, they get extra grants for extra active season or something?

I think such predictions are well grounded, educated wild guesses.

b.

Complicated stuff, weather. Everything pointed towards an active season. It may well have been a very nasty year if Pakistan and Russia weren't hammered with theit own extreme weather.
Pakistan's flood weather eased Atlantic hurricanes - environment - 03 September 2010 - New Scientist

A new forecaster seems to be having some remarkable accuracy though.

YouTube - Dr. Hansimian's Hurricane Forecast

[Pato]

Never believe a weather man there seldom correct But being a la nina year with warmer water temp it is more likely to have more and larger weather activities. I miss lower lat living pnw gets dull

[capngeo]

Originally Posted by Unicorn Dreams

I don't remember Wil,a hitting the Key's.

Haven't boarded up the house since the 70's.

Take a look here

My boat was next to "Great Escape" in This Picture

[gonesail]

you all can believe what you want but these guys from colorado have been predicting the same thing since 2004. they were right once but that sure doesn't keep em from trying.

[dacust]

Originally Posted by Hud3

I was just reading an article on www.wunderground.com which discusses the current forecast. Apparently everyone in the business recognizes that forecasting the Atlantic hurricane season in April is an exercise worth doing, but at present has little or nothing to offer in the way of accuracy.

An excerpt...
The forecast that comes out in June has been considerably more accurate.

Originally Posted by gonesail

you all can believe what you want but these guys from colorado have been predicting the same thing since 2004. they were right once but that sure doesn't keep em from trying.

There is nothing wrong with the guys in Colorado. As Hud points out, "Apparently everyone in the business recognizes that forecasting the Atlantic hurricane season in April is an exercise worth doing, but at present has little or nothing to offer in the way of accuracy."

The problem, as usual, is the media. They interview the scientists at NOAA, listen to all the caveats they say about the forecasts only meaning probabilities based on models that haven't been perfected yet, and then they go print the predictions without the caveats.

And, as to the point that they are in Colorado: The researchers connected with NOAA are all over the world, as are the data collection devices. Where the headquarters are has no bearing on the issue.

-dan

[Hud3]

Right on, Dan.

It's probably a mistake for them to publish the April forecast, since the media and the general public assume they're supposed to place credence in it. Then, after it's inevitably shown to be off the mark, everyone piles on, saying "the weatherman lied" and such nonsense.

I've been sailing and living in the eastern Caribbean for almost seven years, so I've spent a lot of time studying the NHC's forecasts and especially their analysis commentaries. Those guys really do a great job, in my estimation, given the nature of the beast they're trying to second guess. Another good resource is Dr. Jeff Masters of wunderground.com. He's very good, and he also has a lot of respect for the NHC.

[Blue Stocking]

Having lived in Bermuda for 65 yrs, I believe the only thing thats predictable, is that they are un-predictable.
Lost track of how many I have been involved with.

[bobsadler]

From WUWT: "Dr. Ryan Maue, WUWT contributor and the keeper of the Florida State University dataset on Accumlated Cyclone Energy, has this to say:

2010 is in the books: Global Tropical Cyclone Accumulated Cyclone Energy [ACE] remains lowest in at least three decades, and expected to decrease even further… For the calendar year 2010, a total of 46 tropical cyclones of tropical storm force developed in the Northern Hemisphere, the fewest since 1977.

For the calendar-year 2010, there were 66-tropical cyclones globally, the fewest in the reliable record (since 1970)!

And here’s the data plotted up through 2010, the “Hottest Year Ever”.... [and] NASA GISS said we just finished the “warmest decade on record” in 2009, ACE is at a 30 year low in 2010"

[flysci]

Given the rapid and not totally understood climate changes that are happening, leading to such changes as bobsadler pointed out, etc, I wouldn't be surprised if the hurricane models used for predictions are having problems. Since the models are based on past data, they will not be fully taking the recent changes into consideration. How can they, when the current changes are unprecedented and not fully modeled.

I would say all bets are off for a while until the new reality (warmer earth) is more fully understood and more accurately modeled.

Margo

[dacust]

Originally Posted by flysci

Given the rapid and not totally understood climate changes that are happening, leading to such changes as bobsadler pointed out, etc, I wouldn't be surprised if the hurricane models used for predictions are having problems. Since the models are based on past data, they will not be fully taking the recent changes into consideration. How can they, when the current changes are unprecedented and not fully modeled.

I would say all bets are off for a while until the new reality (warmer earth) is more fully understood and more accurately modeled.

Margo

It all goes hand-in-hand. The models are improving for the global climate as the models are improving for hurricane prediction. Some of the same databases and computers are used for both. When a faster computer appears, or new data is collected in a way different from before, new things come to light.

An example is that when a different model included some currents not before available, to everyone's surprise, El Nino showed up in the models relatively predictably. They weren't trying to model El Nino, but there it was.

As computers get more powerful and more and more data is added to the models, they'll get better.

-dan

[44'cruisingcat]

The 2010/2011 cyclone season in Qld was forecast as being worse than average too - although not much worse - 6 cyclones as opposed to the average 5 crossing the Qld coast. I'm pretty sure we had less than even the average 5, I can recall only 3, but one of them certainly packed a wallop.