By Steve Goddard
Thanks to Dr Klotzbach for his excellent post describing his thinking behind the CSU hurricane forecast.
A number of readers asked about SSTs in the hurricane nursery. So I took the most recent Unisys SST anomaly map, removed all colors between -0.5°C and +0.5°C, and overlaid the most recent tropical storm map on it.
Note that the only region (1) with any chance of turning into a hurricane is located in water that is essentially normal (+/- 0.5°C) temperature.
NOAA describes it as follows :
SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS ASSOCIATED WITH A LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM LOCATED ABOUT 750 MILES NORTHEAST OF THE NORTHERN LEEWARD ISLANDS HAVE CHANGED LITTLE IN ORGANIZATION DURING THE LAST SEVERAL HOURS. UPPER-LEVEL WINDS ARE MARGINALLY CONDUCIVE FOR DEVELOPMENT…AND ANY INCREASE IN THUNDERSTORM ORGANIZATION COULD RESULT IN THE FORMATION OF A TROPICAL DEPRESSION AT ANY TIME. THERE IS A HIGH CHANCE…70 PERCENT…OF THIS SYSTEM BECOMING A TROPICAL CYCLONE DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS AS IT MOVES TOWARD THE NORTH AND NORTH-NORTHEAST OVER THE ATLANTIC.
2010 hurricanes are right at the 1944-2005 average of one for the date. There have been years (like 1969) which started slow but took off in mid-August. We will know soon if 2010 will turn into of those years.
http://www.weatherstreet.com/hurricane/2010/Hurricane-Atlantic-2010.htm
Afternoon update: region 1 has been downgraded.
A LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM LOCATED ABOUT 700 MILES NORTHEAST OF THE
NORTHERN LEEWARD ISLANDS HAS BECOME LESS ORGANIZED THIS
AFTERNOON…AND DEVELOPMENT APPEARS A LITTLE LESS LIKELY DUE TO
STRONG UPPER-LEVEL WINDS. THERE IS A MEDIUM CHANCE…50
PERCENT…OF THIS SYSTEM BECOMING A TROPICAL CYCLONE DURING THE NEXT
48 HOURS AS IT MOVES TOWARD THE NORTH AND NORTH-NORTHEAST OVER
THE ATLANTIC.
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The atmospheric conditions and SST are primed for some strong activity in the Atlantic. There is no denying this. The rest of the world is another story altogether.
Calling individual storms is a mugs game.
It appears that we have conditions which, all things being equal, could create significant hurricane action.
So the interesting question is whether or not the conditions which the science says will create those storms actually do. If they do, then for this season “the science is settled”.
But what if they don’t?
And here’s a graph of tropical North Atlantic SST anomalies (0-20N, 78W-20E), using the weekly Reynolds OI.v2 data:
http://i34.tinypic.com/9vjebm.jpg
We will know soon if 2010 will turn into of those years.
As with everything else, it’s a 50-50 chance — either it will, or it won’t…
What’s up with that nice, neat circular swirl at the mouth of the Mississippi, this morning? It doesn’t exactly look like a “dissipated low” to me.
http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/radar.php?product=N0V&rid=MOB&loop=yes
Meanwhile we are bone dry in Southern New Hampshire. Every cotton pickin’ thunderstorm has missed us all summer, and the heavy rains out in Iowa seems to wring all the moisture from eastern-moving systems. We sure could use a “dissipated tropical low” in these parts. I’ve never seen my farm pond so low.
And here’s a graph of the SST anomalies for the North Atlantic’s Main Development Region (MDR) that Philip Klotzbach referred to in his post. The coordinates of the MDR are 10N-20N, 70W-20W:
http://i35.tinypic.com/2llzsc3.jpg
Hurricane formation is a stochastic process. Prediction is a waste of time.
I hear Greenpeace are releasing many thousands of butterflies off Cape Verde islands in the hope that at least one pair of tiny wings will do the trick………….
Sometimes all it takes is for a butterfly to open it’s wings…..
[Isaac’s storm reference – Galveston Hurricane, Sept. 8, 1900]
Will you be investigating this?
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/climate-reports/7479-us-government-in-massive-new-global-warming-scandal-noaa-disgraced
Bob,
Thanks for the graphs. 2010 is now lower SSTs than the very slow hurricane year of 2006 – which was also forecast as a big season by all the experts.
http://www.batterysavers.com/2006-hurricane-forecast.htm
Lulo says:
August 12, 2010 at 12:07 am
The atmospheric conditions and SST are primed for some strong activity in the Atlantic. There is no denying this. The rest of the world is another story altogether.
I wouldn’t hold the atmospheric conditions and the SST’s as the most important factors , any more than I hold the SSN# as the overarching factor. When the canes are taken shape, you watch the tracks and prepare to get out of the way.
When the spots get really weak or disappear, you prepare for the consequences that the literature speaks of.
John A says:
August 12, 2010 at 1:47 am
Randomness/Chaos exists only in the mind of the beholder.
atlantic now shows no storms (0%) for next 48 hours.
Bob Tisdale says:
August 12, 2010 at 1:28 am
Less than one degree….Is it enough?
stevengoddard says:
August 12, 2010 at 4:51 am
“2010 is now lower SSTs than the very slow hurricane year of 2006 – which was also forecast as a big season by all the experts.”
Here’s another “blast from the past” link:
2006 hurricane forecast: 8-10 storms
U.S. Government experts say 4-6 could be major
updated 5/22/2006 8:50:26 PM ET
MIAMI — The 2006 Atlantic hurricane season will be very active with up to 10 hurricanes, although not as busy as record-breaking 2005, when Hurricane Katrina and several other monster storms slammed into the United States, the U.S. government’s top climate agency said on Monday.
Also…
U.S. hurricane experts say the sharp rise in storm activity is related to a natural shift in climatic conditions and sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic that is expected to last from 15 to 40 years.
So what really happened?
2006 hurricane season bows out quietly
November 30, 2006
Defying predictions, the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season ended with a whimper rather than a bang on Thursday, without a single hurricane hitting U.S. shores.
Only three tropical storms made landfall, a welcome relief from the previous two years, when nearly a dozen hurricanes battered the country.
The sense of quiet was relative. Although 2006 might have seemed tame compared with the devastation of 2004 and 2005, the season’s totals — nine named storms, five hurricanes, two of them major — were actually right at the historical average for the past 150 years, according to data from the National Hurricane Center.
Stephan says:
August 12, 2010 at 4:09 am
“One more string to the Zebra?”
Lulo says:
August 12, 2010 at 12:07 am
The atmospheric conditions and SST are primed for some strong activity in the Atlantic. There is no denying this.
Well…gee, I don’t know about that. Most every system so far has been torn apart or choaked by shear &/or dry air. If those issues do not change (less shear, deeper moisture) , it does not matter what initial systems/disturbances there are – the will not survive to be anything. It’s almost like the El Nino effects of last year are hanging on into the Atlantic basin. As with everything, time will tell.
Jeff
Earlier in the season I think the cool pool that attracted people’s attention was further north than the MDR. Keep in mind there’s more to hurricane formation than SSTs, though the MDR is very important in major Cape Verde hurricanes.
I like Bob’s graph, but note that 2005 and 2006 weren’t all that far apart. I’ve mentioned that I like the Klotzbach/Gray post-mortems, for 2006, they summarize in http://hurricane.atmos.colostate.edu/Forecasts/2006/nov2006/nov2006.pdf :
So, that was the year that El Ninño shut things down mid-season.
A hurricane forecaster who calls one of their forecasts a bust – one of the reasons I like them so much.
Note the reference to “slightly below normal” – that covers the whole record, it was quite below the “normal” of the high THC periods, and the post El Niño months were probably below the long term average. I wouldn’t call 2006 a “very slow hurricane year.”
El Niño is one of various things that can squash a season’s activity. I’ve mentioned Saharan dust before. One thing I want to look into is the Madden-Julian (sp?) Oscillation, that has a period of a month or so and has a big impact on storm formation, though it generally evens out over the season.
Related to SST’s, I was unaware that the TCHP product was modified last on 10-15-2008. Hence, why things looked odd when comparing prior years. For your use.
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/cyclone/data/method.html
The latest depression to potentially be named Diane is down graded per the news this am.
Perhaps we are seeing a change in ocean and atmospheric behavior toward behavior that has not been seen for more than a century. All the clever little statistical tools like ‘Nino 3.4’ and such metrics were useful during the early part of the relatively predictable satellite era but the chaotic climate system is perhaps ponderously moving out of that eddy into a different state. All the clever statistical pattern matching may suddenly cease to work. This could explain the failure of the UK Met Office to get things right over the last few years.
It is very nice to read all the stories , but really nobody is addressing the constantly lowering SST – anomalies in the birth region of the mid-atlantic tropical depressions , where most likely a lower than normal temperature will start to appear in the coming months when the present development from the last winter is going to be continued …. So what are the chances , an intensive hurricane season when the food for these hurricanes is disappearing ?
Looks like we are in a down-trending NAO, with the start of southward displacement of the polar vortex (about 45 days early, seasonally, hence the flooding rain in Iowa). East coast trophiness is coming and opening up the gate for landfalls. If the subtropical jet would die down, something should pop and cause some aggravation, maybe as far north as Long Island.
I know nothing about hurricanes. However, I am surprised that if conditions are right for a very active season, as Dr. Klotzbach suggested, then why do not storms such as Colin, turn into hurricanes? We have just seen a flurry of areas of disorganized showers not turning into named storms. I just find it difficult to understand why, if conditions are ripe for hurricane formation, hurricanes are not forming from disorganized systems which HAVE formed.