Hurricane season started June 1st, and with it an unprecedented 10 year long drought of U.S. landfalling hurricanes that are Category 3 or higher.
Bonnie, the second tropical storm of the 2016 season, drenched parts of the Atlantic coast from Georgia to Rhode Island with up to 8 inches this past Memorial Day weekend. What’s ahead for the hurricane season of 2016? It has been a decade since the last major hurricane, Category 3 or higher, has made landfall in the United States. This is the longest period of time for the United States to avoid a major hurricane since reliable records began in 1850. According to a NASA study, a 10-year gap comes along only every 270 years.
The National Hurricane Center calls any Category 3 or more intense hurricane a “major” storm. It should be noted that hurricanes making landfall as less than Category 3 can still cause extreme damage, with heavy rains and coastal storm surges. Such was the case with Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
Timothy Hall, a research scientist who studies hurricanes at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York and colleague Kelly Hereid, who works for ACE Tempest Re, a reinsurance firm based in Connecticut, ran a statistical hurricane model based on a record of Atlantic tropical cyclones from 1950 to 2012 and sea surface temperature data.
The researchers ran 1,000 computer simulations of the period from 1950-2012 – in effect simulating 63,000 separate Atlantic hurricane seasons. They also found that there is approximately a 40% chance that a major hurricane will make landfall in the United States every year.
These visualizations show hurricane tracks from 1980 through 2015. Green tracks are storms that did not make landfall in the U.S.; yellow tracks are storms that made landfall but were not Category 3 or higher; and red tracks are Category 3 or higher hurricanes that did make landfall.
1. Over the past 10 years there have been 69 Atlantic hurricanes but during that time no hurricanes of Category 3 or higher have hit the U.S. coastline. Such a string of lucky years is likely to happen only once in 270 years, according to a NASA study.
2. Storms less than Category 3, such as Sandy in 2012, can still be dangerous.
3. But what about this upcoming hurricane season? Statistical analysis indicates that for any given year there is a 40% chance of a Category 3 or higher hurricane landing across the U.S. coastline.
But remember it only takes one storm in your area. Be prepared this summer.
“Hurricane season started June 1st, and with it and unprecedented 10 year long drought of U.S. landfalling hurricanes that are Category 3 or higher.”
Should that be ” an unprecedented ”
[fixed -mod]
” Bonnie ” was NOT a hurricane; just a rain storm ; with precipitation of less than a meter in some locations.
Likewise, ” Sandy ” was NOT a hurricane when it rained on parts of the East Coast. ON its way from Africa, Sandy did make H status, and was extensive in area.
But when disasters fail to occur you have to start naming the mundane, just to get some attention.
For the record, the catastrophic drought high Temperature in Silicon Valley today, did not exceed the + 136 deg. F record set somewhere on earth previously; so IF it had, it WOULD NOT have been unprecedented.
G
Please can somebody in Sacramento; or wherever Moonbeam Brown does live, inform the Governor of California, that ” RAIN ” in California, most often comes out of the Pacific Ocean; when and if, and maybe only if, it GETS WARM out in the Pacific Ocean.
Sometimes, such bringers of anti-drought to California are called El Ninos (that’s Mexican), and we just had one, which is why we just had an anti-drought.
Conversely; when and if, and maybe only if it gets cold out in the Pacific Ocean, that interferes with the free evaporation of water from the Pacific Ocean, which can and usually does then not come over California, and not deposit rain on this traditional desert State.
And we don’t actually want those La Ninas (also Mexican) to be depositing water all over the 370,000 mirrors of the free clean green renewable Natural Gas fired insolar power station down at Ivanpah which is out in the desert (not on one of the golf courses) down where Jerry lives.
We are back to normal California Weather and Climate too Governor Brown, and we want to keep it that way, so stop trying to grow grass, out in the desert to bore little holes into.
G
The Weather Channel is naming rainy days now–and trying to make you believe they are “emergencies.”
I should hope the precip was less than a meter–that’s nearly 40 inches, in our measure. Here in Virginia, Bonnie was spotty and irregular with her generosity; at my house the gauge swelled to 1.02″ of rain, though further west I think they got more. Nothing unusual, in any event.
Here in Colorado I’ve noticed someone has started naming snowstorms.
By naming them I suppose we are to conclude there is something unusual. about snowstorms in Colorado.
Clearly this hurricane drought is proof of climate change because this is a break from what is to be expected. Climate change is by definition a break from what is to be expected. So, with climate change we can expected a lot of hurricanes but because there are none this is proof of climate change.
Exactly. Whatever weather happens is proof of climate change because without climate change we wouldn’t have weather.
I blame the change in naming convention for the hurricane drought. During the changeover to mixed gender names there was a dating frenzy, but now the men are exerting a moderating influence.
Female hurricanes kill more people than male hurricanes.
Wow, It’s not even a week since Hurricane season started and already it has rained.
First we demoted Pluto to non planet status, so now non hurricanes are being named so they can be like Pluto and be named nobodies
OOoops !! All of a sudden they are discovering that Pluto is a damn side more interesting than they had previously thought. Maybe it should be re-instated to hurricane status.
Tropical storm my a****. It’s rain in the tropics !
G
Statistical analysis indicates that for any given year there is a 60% chance of a Category 3 or higher hurricane not landing across the U.S. coastline.
….since they have such an impeccable history of predictions
A slight excerpt from your post didn’t post; and that was the clause ” for any given year ” ….. ‘ up to and including 2016 prior to Jun 04 2016. ‘ …..
We know it fell out of your post, because the statistical analysis you imply you did could NOT have included any observational data, and real numbers for any date or year post 06/04/2016. Gots to have real numbers to do statistical analyses !
g
LOL….good catch george!
It’s not a forecast, it’s a statement about what has historically happened.
I fear that this streak is going to end this year. I feel for the potential victims; I hope emergency preparedness is at a high standard.
I also fear for the spin that would undoubtedly occur.
The CAGW faithful are praying for a CAT3 or better hurricane, with all the devastation it brings, so they can use it as proof of their agenda. The fact that there has been a drought of CAT3+ hurricanes has barely been reported in the MSM. It will be quickly forgotten once a major hurricane does make landfall.
“When I heard about Katrina, I applauded”
Joergen Randers jr.
Co-author of “The Limits to Growth”, 1972
Watch them make hay with the current flooding in France and other parts of Europe.
The US south and east coast areas need hurricanes and tropical storms. It is part of Ma Nature’s way to recharge aquifers and make things grow.
I think that next year will be the year in which we may experience more tornadoes and hurricanes. There is a correlation between ENSO changes and tornadoes and hurricanes, imo.
1 / (0.6^10) = 165 (not 270)
It appears that they used 11 years, rather than 10, for their “Such a string of lucky years is likely to happen only once in 270 years” calculation.
This post is from the current press release not from the paper. The press release rounded the chance of landfall and dropped off the confidence intervals. The paper is available here http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1002/2015GL063652/full
In the paper they assume that hurricane landfall is a bernoulli process, which is definitely not trivially true.
In the paper it is assumed that hurricane landfall is a Bernoulli process, this is not trivially true. A Bernoulli process means that the outcome of a single variable is independent of all other variables, i e that the probability of a major landfall in a given year is completely independent of a landfall in any other years. This actually seems unlikely, since hurricane activity is e. g. much affected by ENSO, and the probability of a Nino/Nina in a given year is definitely not independent of the ENSO state in the previous/next year.
And when a major storm hits the U.S., whether this year or next or whenever, it’ll be described as unprecedented … in some way.
Meanwhile, Texas doesn’t need a hurricane of any category … they’re already drowning with massive flooding … and in a couple years it’ll probably be a drought that’ll be their problem.
According to quite a few climatologists, Texas entered a perma-drought a couple of years ago and will be in for quite some time due to climate change. All that rain is an illusion and those cars being swept down the rivers is CGI animation.
…for 2 years in a row, now.
Two years in a row is still weather; not climate.
g
Yeah but if you average those recent years of drought with the last two years of rain it all comes out nice and even. So statistically the last few years had nothing out of the ordinary happen.
I live in the Houston area (5 miles from the Brazos River). Back a couple hundred years ago this whole area was a swamp inhabitated by alligators, cannibals and pirates. Nature constantly works to bring back those wonderful old times.
Seem to remember reading that back before all the dams and reservoirs were built, there were times the flooding on the Brazos and Colorado drainage would be so extreme that the two rivers would actually meet in places on the coastal plain. North central Texas is glad for the rain, but enough is enough. Can’t store any more and the excess will keep going your way.
Here are more heavy rainfalls…http://newsworms.com/2016/06/03/floods-wreak-havoc-in-france-germany-after-incessant-rain.html
“1 / (0.6^10) = 165 (not 270)” I made the same calculation with the same result. Or to say the same thing another way there is a 99.395% chance of at least one cat 3 or better in a ten year period. So is there a legitimate reason they made the calculation based on 11 years? I think I’m missing something [and I hate that feeling].
Just a guess:
The 40% (or 60% the other way) number is from ACE Tempest, the 270 year number is from NASA.
The two different groups come up with numbers which agree to within a factor of 2x, seems reasonable.
Is this what is happening here?
When there is a hurricane drought it’s just luck, but if one does hit, hoo-boy, that is manmade global warming/climate change (take your pick) right there, yessirree bob. Warmist logic.
Then it’s bohica catastrophic man made global warming/climate change.
‘This is the longest period of time for the United States to avoid a major hurricane since reliable records began in 1850. According to a NASA study, a 10-year gap comes along only every 270 years.’
Huh? 2016 – 1850 gives a 166 year record. So where does the 270 years come from, computer models?
Math.
Correction: Climate Math.
There are less reliable records going much farther back.
But consider the source:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v460/n7257/full/nature08219.html
Letter to Nature by Mann, et al., 2009, “Atlantic hurricanes and climate over the past 1,500 years”.
Hurricane Fran came through Raleigh NC in 1996 and had downgraded to a 1 by then, but caused incredible damage. We lost power for 12 days and are in the heart of the city. There are a huge number of large old oaks in the city and there were an estimated 35,000 lost in the city limits alone. Large chippers were brought in and ran for weeks.
Catastrophic hurricanes lose a lot of their ultra high wind strength in the first 12-18 hrs after landfall, but these things take seemingly forever to dissipate. If they slow down, they drop incredible amounts of water over a relatively small area and if they plow on, the combination of wind/rain does its damage over a larger area.
I had never been through a hurricane until Fran (several more since), but the incessant high winds with the occasional higher gusts along with the sideways rain is scary. And if you live along a body of salt water in its path watching it go up 3 meters in a couple of hours is darn impressive as well.
The only good thing is the very high winds of a hurricane are generally confined to a relatively small area on the eastern side, so the odds of getting a direct hit are somewhat diminished. But anyone not evacuating an area likely to be hit is fool.
Hey, we’re neighbors! Drop me a line, rbabcock. http://www.sealevel.info/contact.html
Those who will now, undoubtedly, use hurricane activity in the continental U.S.as some kind of indicator for the global climate state should reflect on the fact that the area of the continental U.S. subject to tropical cyclone activity covers less than 1% of the Earth’s surface.
I sincerely hope that SE Texas doesn’t get any hurricanes or TS this year. We have so much water now…
We have flooding in Texas without a hurricane. Of course, the previous drought was attributed to global warming, so the floods must be global warming, too. Versatile thing, global warming.
Indeed, increasing duration of exceptional drought and increasing occurrences of extreme precipitation events are happening, as predicted by IPCC models. Increasing the energy in a system increases the system’s extrema.
I believe Texas had an extreme multiple-year drought in 1917, and 1951, and the recent multiple-year drought of the last few years, and all were all broken by very heavy rainfall, just like we are seeing now.
Of course the models are the only place such a thing can be found.
Out here in the real world it’s well known that a warmer world is a less stormy one.
TA,
You are correct, although the 1917 drought lasted only two years, the 1950-57 event was the worst on record in Texas. However, my point was that the events were increasing globally, not that they never happened before in a particular area.
MarkW,
Depends on what you mean by less stormy. If you are talking about likelihood of tropical cyclones, that is true, except for the energy of the most powerful storms, and is predicted by models. If you mean occurrences of extreme precipitation events, considering rate and quantity of precipitation, then you are incorrect.
Versatile thing, global warming.
Yes; that’s the beauty of it.
Because of living on the gulf coast, watching weather is what I often do. It takes me two full days to prepare my land for a storm. 3 greenhouse have to come down, trees trimmed where needed, and all items, (400 plus potted plants, 3 barbq pits, and lawn furniture), moved to the south side fence that is protected by the water canal 10 foot high bank. Bags of ice in 2 fridge,s, and 3 bags in freezer. 4 bags in coolers for items required for 3 days with out power. After that all items need to be cooked and eaten. Fill all containers with water, including bath tubs. prep generator to maintain freezers, fridges and water well pump. There is always 20 plus gallons of gas on hand. And enough propane to cook for a month. IKE left nothing but branches on the ground.
No wonder Ike was a problem for you. You had three times the greenhouse effect. LOL
I’m up in Temple, TX
Did I miss something in that video of hurricane tracks? I did not see any red tracks and I watched it twice once at full screen size.
Same here. Color me confused.
Here is one prediction which may have come good
vukcevic | January 30, 2012 at 5:57 am |
According to the NOAA’s assessment the Atlantic hurricane activity is directly related to the Equatorial Atlantic’s SST; neither of which is predictable.
However that not may be the case.
Comparing the NOAA’s Atlantic Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) index with the ‘Atlantic Hurricane probability index’ based on the North Atlantic other historical data (also available from the NOAA) it could be concluded that the hurricane activity will (on average) stay just above the normal for at least a decade.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AHA.htm
curryja | January 30, 2012 at 6:29 am |
I have a draft post on decadal scale hurricane projections, I’ll post this in april or so when people are starting to think about hurricanes. I agree with Vukcevic’s prediction
https://judithcurry.com/2012/01/29/assessing-climate-data-record-transparency-and-maturity/
(the other one is for the SC24max )
“Hurricane season started June 1st, and with it an unprecedented 10 year long drought of U.S. landfalling hurricanes that are Category 3 or higher.”
The 10 year long drought started on June 1st?
The major hurricane drought began Oct. 25, 2005 as Wilma left south Florida. So it is actually 10 years and eight months long as of June 1st
I like to say the U.S. has just experienced 10 hurricane seasons without a major hurricane making landfall. We are about to see if that number will grow to 11!
SR
Another Gore prediction gone wrong.
Sandy was only a hurricane when it was out at sea. It weakened and was a mere tropical storm before coming ashore.
I can call a tropical storm “mere” having grown up in Louisiana, south of I-10.
Not to seem to be jumping on what you said, but severe weather is severe and life potentially life threatening. How “severe” it to those in it can depend what they are used to dealing with.
I know where you’re coming from. A year or so ago I was mildly amused at the hype TWC was giving an ice storm in Atlanta. I was born and raised where snow and ice are not uncommon. I know how to drive (and when not to try to drive) in such conditions. Those born and raised in the South don’t. Some died because of that.
40+ years ago I almost died in a “mere” tropical storm in Texas. If the old VW Bug didn’t actually float….
It’s the hyping of someone’s backyard grill’s or the power grid’s CO2 emissions as the cause of such events that needs to be debunked. If Man’s not “The Cause”, then there is no cause to control Man.
Again. I don’t mean to seem to “jumping on you”. But you’re comment and the post’s comment I quoted brought back being in the a seat of that VW those 40+ years ago.
We don’t want to make light of weather’s threat to lives but of what how other’s are using weather to threaten the rights of those lives.
Hmmm…. There are those who track the time the MSM spends on “conservative” vs “liberal” stories.
I wonder if any of them track the time “The Storm Channel” spends on past tornadoes/hurricanes vs current ones?
Any bets that the quieter the current season the more they remind of an event from a past season?
(What made me think of that was while channel surfing recently (last night?) I stumbled across them talking about Katrina yet again.
As I said elsewhere, I do miss the old and real “The Weather Channel”.
Looks like NASA was able to get their dartboard up and running again. Living in FL my entire life (with the exception of a brief 9.5-year USAF stint), we endure the breathless “WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!” specials every year, as hurricane season kicks off. It’s a crap shoot and anyone who says they can predict how many hurricanes there are going to be is no better than the snake oil salesmen of yesteryear. There’s a reason that NASA/NOAA have been naming every gathering of more than three clouds hanging out on a corner and smoking cigarettes over the last decade— their funding depends on serving and pushing the agenda of the CAGW cabal.
PS: Has anyone actually ever done a comparative study between throwing darts at a board and the NASA hurricane prediction models? (Or any other “climate models”?) Just curious.
B.C. predicting the number of hurricanes shouldn’t be as hard as throwing a dart. The number of hurricanes will almost certainly be more than zero and less than 25. But realistically will be be between 3-20 . All the predictors allow themselves a range, and then are allowed to update their predictions mid season. A willing media never question the previous predictions and if the actual number of hurricane is outside the range the media still says the prediction was remarkable accurate. I find it hard to see how they can go wrong if they predict from 6-11 huracans give or take 2 and the media allows mid season corrections.
You climate skeptics don’t understand the difference between a prediction and a projection.
See – we projected that Hurricanes would be more probable.
The absence of hurricanes is not evidence that we were wrong.
It’s just that an increase in the probability of hurricanes has coincided with a decrease in the number of actual landfalling cat3+ hurricanes.
Anyway, you have just cherry picked the end date (i.e. now) and the start date (i.e. when we made a big load of predictions after hurricane Katrina). And you’ve cherry picked the location (i.e. where we said there would be more hurricanes. On the coast of North America.)
Anyway, we can show that Big Oil has funded a concerted campaign designed to divert hurricanes into the mid Atlantic. etc… (sarc)
indefatigablefrog,
I don’t know to whose prediction, projection, whatever, you are referring, but it is not that of the IPCC. The consensus is for a likely increasing intensity of the most powerful storms, not the frequency, which may actually decline, although they are less certain of that.
Because, as we all already know, hot SST’s can make a severe hurricane more severe, even if less frequent.
But, hot SST’s can NOT make a Cat 2 hurricane more severe thereby making it a Cat 3 landfall, thereby increasing the frequency of Cat 3+’s.
Yep, it all makes complete sense.
I love all these theories within theories.
More and more epicycles.
Sorry – I seem to be stuck in sarc!!
Climate has changed greatly over millions of years without man’s help. There is absolutely NO proof that increased C02 causes global warming, only theories and models. Some scientists believe a warming earth is a cause of degassing and increases C02 levels not the other way around. The climate change hysteria is a way to rationalize redistribution of wealth.
waiting for the other shoe to drop
that this drought is all our fault
fossil fuel emissions are to blame
incidentally, the data i have do not show any trends in north atlantic hurricanes or western pacific typhoons in the period 1945-2014
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2630932
Tom in Florida (from another tom in Florida) Nothing extraordinary ever happens. Try as I might I can’t get this concept through to people, beside a few on here. A 9ft tall man and 3ft tall man makes the average is 6ft even though neither one is 6ft tall. Everyday the weatherman says it is warmer, or colder or drier than “normal” never really stopping to think that a “normal ” day likely has never existed.
Now we are taking a manmade construct, global mean temperature, and blaming it for every weather abnormality we can find, never stopping to realize that abnormalities are normal.
They’re just abusing statistical terminology. It’s not like anyone hasn’t done it before and most people don’t understand the lie.
An observation can be +/- 6 sigma and still be “normal”.
“The researchers ran 1,000 computer simulations of the period from 1950-2012 ” I am not sure why you are calling the computer modelers at Goddard “researchers” gives a bad name to all legitimate researchers.
It’s really hard to get away with “charlatans” or any other truly descriptive representation of them. Researchers is safe from a libel/slander perspective.
On the radio I heard that Tampa hasn’t been directly hit with a hurricane since 1921. Someone said this meant that it is due to be hit. I guess that is one interpretation but another interpretation is that it is very rare for Tampa to be directly hit by a hurricane, it is also possible that hurricanes have no idea where Tampa is and really don’t care one way or another about hitting it or any other place directly.