Hurricane Season 2011 a Bust

[zeehag]

at least ye didnt talk about the west coast and the ones we were spozed to have here in mexico

[mbianka]

Well, one good thing about getting hit by Hurricane Irene. The grumby yard guy at my marinia who is part owner was happy (well less grumpy let's say) because he pulled a whole lot of power boats before the storm and made $$$.

[Tropic Cat]

Originally Posted by Richard Jordan

Reminds of how a friend claimed that "hurricanes never hit Fort Pierce" before the epic '05 year. Still I do think the season is over. Cold fronts are coming through. And I was expecting a bad year.

It was the Epic '04 year when Florida was hit by 4 large hurricanes 2 of them within 3 weeks. I didn't have electricity for much of September, and I live about 40 miles north of Fort Pierce. I only remember Katrina and Wilma in '05, both were small storms here in central Florida that brought us rain.

As for this year, yeah it's over. The most excitement we had was a no name storm around Columbus day which was unforecasted and packed gale force winds.

[Hud3]

Originally Posted by capn_billl

Well so much for a "record breaking hurricane season".

I can breath a sigh of relief and put away the plywood. But why do they always make the prediction, "this will be a record hurricane year".

1 east coast tropical storm, and a couple of small storms in the Atlantic is nothing like 2005, or 1811.

capn bill, your recollection doesn't quite match the facts.

So far this year, we've seen 16 named storms, and four hurricanes (three of them major hurricanes).

In their May 19th, 2011 forecast, NOAA predicted 15 named storms, 8 hurricanes, and 4 or 5 major hurricanes for the Atlantic. An average season has 10 or 11 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 2 intense hurricanes.

We definitely would have had a few more hurricanes but for the fact that excessive wind shear inhibited the development of many of the tropical storms that formed. It's pretty hard to predict wind shear four or five months out. I think NOAA does a pretty good job, on the whole, and they've been getting better every year.

[sailorboy1]

weather forecasters : economists

take your choice on which you feel is normally right in their predictions

wish I could get a job like this

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Hud3

... I think NOAA does a pretty good job, on the whole, and they've been getting better every year.

Indeed!*

It is still too early to declare the hurricane season as being over (the season ends on Nov. 30).

* The “National Hurricane Center Forecast Verification” pages discuss the accuracy and skill of its forecasts, and of the computer models available to it:
➥ National Hurricane Center Forecast Verification

[mrohr]

Easy hurricane season? Not so fast! Here in the Hudson valley and north thru Vermont many lost homes (including me) and indeed whole towns were wiped out here in the Catskills(try you tube Margaretville N.Y.) . I sailed around NYC after Irene and saw numerous boats wrecked along the shores of the Hudson and boats floating upside down while still tethered to their moorings. It wasn't so much high winds ,but rather biblical rains that washed many docks away while boats were still firmly attached.Parts of 3 states were declared Fed disaster areas but may not have made news in the boating press as Vt. and Penn. are hardly percieved as major cruising areas.

[Rakuflames]

Originally Posted by HopCar

All right, cut it out! All this talk of few hurricanes, now you've caused tornado warnings in Miami tonight!

No... that BIG storm that was supposed to hit me but didn't caused that. That thing looked just plain scary on radar!

[Pblais]

Well being on the bad side of Irene was enough for me:

The season is relative to if you got nailed or not. Irene was far too close for comfort here even if it could have been worse. So overall it wasn't a good year here.

In most all years most people are never touched. Personally, I've found nor'easters to be more damaging here and more frequent and not always seasonal. It still leaves tornadoes and lightning in case you need more punishment. A strong T Storm can still knock you down and beat you up.

[capn_billl]

Originally Posted by tartansail

While waiting for the season to be over, there did seem to be an unusual number of storms that stayed way east of the usual track. Whereas the norm for the Atlantic storms is to come ashore in Florida with a few heading further north and the occasional one tracking over Bermuda, this year, Irene seemed to have the westernmost and a several headed east of Bermuda and up toward Iceland and Britain. Any insights into why this was?

There was some discussion on this on Weather underground. Some points brought up were, Smaller than what has been typical in recent years Atlantic high, westerlies a little further south.

We are several years from the cyclic peak of hurricanes that follows a 22 year cycle. Peak was 2005.

Historically most atlantic storms form mid atlantic and either brush burmuda or the east coast. A few rather bizarre patterns the last 8 years from el nino, etc... pushed those storms more westwards and into Gulf of Mexico.

After rebuilding my house twice, I'm glad the old pattern is back.

[capn_billl]

Originally Posted by mrohr

Easy hurricane season? Not so fast! Here in the Hudson valley and north thru Vermont many lost homes (including me) and indeed whole towns were wiped out here in the Catskills(try you tube Margaretville N.Y.) . I sailed around NYC after Irene and saw numerous boats wrecked along the shores of the Hudson and boats floating upside down while still tethered to their moorings. It wasn't so much high winds ,but rather biblical rains that washed many docks away while boats were still firmly attached.Parts of 3 states were declared Fed disaster areas but may not have made news in the boating press as Vt. and Penn. are hardly percieved as major cruising areas.

Not to make light of that dissaster, but Florida usually experiences several tropical storms much bigger than that every season. Here in Texas any storm with less than hurricane force winds is hardly even newsworthy.

[Dkdoyle]

Ok would you all quit sending the jinx. There are two systems out there now.

[maytrix]

Take a trip to Vermont. Worst season there in memorable history. Irene did so much damage its just unreal. We bought a house there 3 months ago and it was all but destroyed as were many others. Towns were also cut off for days until they could get some temporary patches on the roads.

So while it may have been a bust in more typical areas, it certainly hit some areas pretty hard. I know the flooding in NJ was also related to Irene as well.

[Dkdoyle]

Sorry for your loss. I do understand the damages of flash floods. Right now there is a hurricane in the gulf that will hit yacatan in 2 days as a cat 3. After that depending on how strong it is imay come across the gulf and hit florida somewhere between naples and the keys as a cat 4.
You just leave for a cat 4. There is another system coming behind this one. The sinking cold front is a blessing to anyone north of the front but is also steering this back at florida.

[maytrix]

Thanks.

I couldn't help but comment, since this is one hurricane season we'll never forget, so seeing it called a "bust" caught my eye

Flash flooding is crazy - Worst flooding in Vermont in 100 years pretty much. No wind damage which is what we thought we'd see. It's a 2nd home so we were up the day before, putting stuff away and making sure nothing would blow away. We didn't think we were going to have to worry about it floating away and that we'd find the house in a new place. Would have been better if it had been a boat