This NOAA press release just showed up in my inbox, it seems to be a completely different take on the Hurricane season than that of Florida State’s COAPS and Ryan Maue who says:
Record inactivity continues: Past 24-months of Northern Hemisphere TC activity (ACE) lowest in 30-years.
Global and Northern Hemisphere Accumulated Cyclone Energy: 24 month running sum through October 31, 2008. Note that the year indicated represents the value of ACE through the previous 24-months.
This was discussed at length at Climate Audit here
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Carmeyia Gillis
Nov. 26, 2008
301-763-8000, ext. 7163 (office)
240-882-9047 (cellular)
Dennis Feltgen
305-229-4404 (office)
305-433-1933 (cellular)
Atlantic Hurricane Season Sets Records
The 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season officially comes to a close on Sunday, marking the end of a season that produced a record number of consecutive storms to strike the United States and ranks as one of the more active seasons in the 64 years since comprehensive records began.
A total of 16 named storms formed this season, based on an operational estimate by NOAA’s National Hurricane Center. The storms included eight hurricanes, five of which were major hurricanes at Category 3 strength or higher. These numbers fall within the ranges predicted in NOAA’s pre- and mid-season outlooks issued in May and August. The August outlook called for 14 to 18 named storms, seven to 10 hurricanes and three to six major hurricanes. An average season has 11 named storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes.
“This year’s hurricane season continues the current active hurricane era and is the tenth season to produce above-normal activity in the past 14 years,” said Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.
Overall, the season is tied as the fourth most active in terms of named storms (16) and major hurricanes (five), and is tied as the fifth most active in terms of hurricanes (eight) since 1944, which was the first year aircraft missions flew into tropical storms and hurricanes.
For the first time on record, six consecutive tropical cyclones (Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike) made landfall on the U.S. mainland and a record three major hurricanes (Gustav, Ike and Paloma) struck Cuba. This is also the first Atlantic season to have a major hurricane (Category 3) form in five consecutive months (July: Bertha, August: Gustav, September: Ike, October: Omar, November: Paloma).
Bell attributes this year’s above-normal season to conditions that include:
- An ongoing multi-decadal signal. This combination of ocean and atmospheric conditions has spawned increased hurricane activity since 1995.
- Lingering La Niña effects. Although the La Niña that began in the Fall of 2007 ended in June, its influence of light wind shear lingered.
- Warmer tropical Atlantic Ocean temperatures. On average, the tropical Atlantic was about 1.0 degree Fahrenheit above normal during the peak of the season.
NOAA’s National Hurricane Center is conducting comprehensive post-event assessments of each named storm of the season. Some of the early noteworthy findings include:
- Bertha was a tropical cyclone for 17 days (July 3-20), making it the longest-lived July storm on record in the Atlantic Basin.
- Fay is the only storm on record to make landfall four times in the state of Florida, and to prompt tropical storm and hurricane watches and warnings for the state’s entire coastline (at various times during its August lifespan).
- Paloma, reaching Category 4 status with top winds of 145 mph, is the second strongest November hurricane on record (behind Lenny in 1999 with top winds of 155 mph).
Much of the storm-specific information is based on operational estimates and some changes could be made during the review process that is underway.
“The information we’ll gain by assessing the events from the 2008 hurricane season will help us do an even better job in the future,” said Bill Read, director of NOAA’s National Hurricane Center. “With this season behind us, it’s time to prepare for the one that lies ahead.”
NOAA will issue its initial 2009 Atlantic Hurricane Outlook in May, prior to the official start of the season on June 1.
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
A graphic track map of this season’s storms and satellite visualization of the entire season is available at http://www.noaa.gov.
On the Web:
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov
NOAA’s National Hurricane Center: http://www.hurricanes.gov
NHC 2008 Tropical Cyclone Reports: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/2008atlan.shtml
###
@ur momisugly Will Small (15:35:18) :
You requested gentle – I gave you gentle. One point at a time.
WRT your enthusiasm for “Absolutely yes on carbon trading and carbon taxes.
It’s a small price to pay to continue to sustain life on the planet as we know it. Don’t you think? Let’s think long term and not be short-sighted.”
Which is all predicated on the assumption that man-made emissions of CO2 will cause (or are causing) catastrophic warming of the climate.
The above key/core assumption is highly contentious, and if you dig deep enough you will find that the evidence does not stand up.
WRT Carbon Trading and Carbon Taxes (do you work for a merchant bank looking for a new market to exploit… :-)).
Everyone will pay for increased energy costs under such a scheme at all points of the production of all goods and services. I can’t think of anything that does not involve the imput of energy in some way.
The wealthy will not notice the additional costs, those who are poor, or are in the marginal groups who’s working income just meets their needs will be hit really hard.
CO2 suppression via cap and trade is a direct attack on the poor of the world whether they are living in the developed or undeveloped countries. The principle winners are the banks and other financial institutions that will be able to exploit a new tradeable commodity (carbon) funded by a tax on energy (CO2) production.
I would suggest that you take a good long hard look at the actual costs of the proposed solutions to AGW and try and identify who are the winners and who are the losers. look especially at where the money will flow, from whom and too whom.
PS, life has existed on Earth with much higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere then are present now.
Will Small
Just a short note for you. Despite all the solutions and mitigations you support, not a one of them will have any effect at all when compared to nature.
Nature and the forces it harbors will squish you like a bug anytime it damn well pleases. There’s nothing anyone can do about it, so stop acting like you can control it.
Cap and trade is a pipe dream on par with the investor shams that have corrupted our economy. If you support it, you must be a shyster on par with Gore’s favored Lehman Brothers outfit.
Will Small (13:53:05) :
Will, I am not going to bother replying to your screed point by point. You have truly drunk of the elixir of enviro-doom. You repeat all the usual stuff. Perhaps you work for “the team”.
You set up straw men, such as “show me scientific proof that AGW is not real”. You know darn well that there are no positive “proofs” in science. At best, supporting evidence. Only the negative can be proved in science.
If you are following this thread, then you will probably reply to me thusly: “Show me where I said “show me scientific proof that AGW is not real”“. At which I would have to show your pedantic highness the whole thing you wrote and ask you what the meaning was. And you will deny it’s meaning, maintaining the pedantic position.
I could go on but it’s a waste of electrons.
Me:
“Absolutely yes on carbon trading and carbon taxes.
It’s a small price to pay to continue to sustain life on the planet as we know it. Don’t you think? Let’s think long term and not be short-sighted.”
JimB (16:26:30) :
This statement astounds me every time I hear/see it. Small price?…according to whom?…the people starving to death in Africa because the corn market went through the roof? The people that were killed in the food riots?
It is an ill-informed and niave belief system that would allow this statement to be made.
Me:
Jim – you mis-spelled naive. Exactly, short term sacrifice means that people have pain. Prices go up. Quality of life goes down. People die in riots. Precisely. That’s where this is heading with or w/o addressing carbon. Over 350ppm we’re in serious trouble.
Let’s not get off track.
But back to the core issue that no one but Jim Clarke has taken up. Thank you Jim for your response. It’s appreciated. Just as I promised Graeme, I’ll delve into your response to see if I can find counter-arguments.
Glad to hear that you’re a concerned citizen of Planet Earth too. I’m intrigued by “I am more concerned about what governments do to people than what ‘climate change’ does to people.”
Fascinating. Especially, how their seems to be a huge groundswell for the gov’t to help bailout banks, insurers, car companies, etc.
Hmm.
Maybe gov’t is the solution and the problem is stupid corporations and their short-sighted executives?
@ur momisugly Will Small (15:35:18) :
Another point to understand is that so-called “Climate Science” is often very sloppy in it’s practices.
If I was in the business of making large scale policy decisions affecting peoples lives I would want to know that the underlying science was being conducted in a highly professional, and verifiably professional way.
This would include.
1. Transparancy of Data, Programs, and Methods used in Climate Science.
2. The clear use of Configuration and Data Management Practicies by the various AGW groups such as GISS, in accordance with typical industry best practice standards.
3. Repeatability of results by independent teams.
4. A theory of AGW that was cleary falsifiable and where the research actually tested for the falsification criteria. I.e. research designed to falsify the theory of AGW.
Please check http://www.climateaudit.org for reading on the above issues.
Here is another “courageous” test, proceed on the assumption that AGW is a false hypothesis, and see where that takes you.
PS. Before I started looking I had the typical superficial MSM conditioned view of AGW as correct. It was the discovery that the data underlying AGW is so mishandled and obfuscated that sowed the initial seeds of my doubt.
(I am a natural sceptic, but I hadn’t given AGW much thought until 2008).
I find it very difficult to believe that a sloppy, incoherent process and data handling activities can produce useful results.
If the process framework for the “science” is not credible, then neither will be the science, – and the scientists involved seem to resolutely refuse to clean up their act and adopt credible processes and data management techniques.
Will,
Here’s the comparison of James Hansen’s ‘scenario ‘A” (no significant action to reduce C02) temperature vs actual over the period 1988 – 2008. As you can see the actual temps are becoming ridiculously lower than HAnsen’s prediction (a prediction based on his understanding of climate sensitivity to COO2 and the IPCCs acceptance of his calculations). Pretty clearly Hansen is wrong and the climate is not nearly as sensitive to CO2 increase as he or the IPCC would have you believe.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/GISSvs_Hansen.JPG (Hansen Scenario A in green)
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/RSSvs_Hansen.JPG RSS is the Satellite derived Temps
Roger Knights (15:57:21) :
“petards”
I love petards, sauteed with sweetbreads and finished with a little sherry.
Seriously, I love this site. Where else would someone bring up petards?? (First known reference is Shakespere’s Hamlet http://groups.google.com/group/humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare/browse_thread/thread/93e82e7629e48e63?pli=1
should you care)
Steamboat Jack
The figure of 16 storms is a stretch, at best. Several of them, as posted above, were barely more than a clump of thunderstorms; Nana, Laura, and Josephine come to mind and really make one wonder if NHC is padding the numbers to fit the AGW agenda and/or to help to verify their seasonal forecasts.
In addition, I do not feel it is not meaningful to compare tropical storm/hurricane numbers before satellite observations were available since there could have been many pre-satellite storms that would not have been detected unless they went over inhabited areas or if a ship sailed into them. NHC uses statistical methods to account for satellite vs. pre-satellite figure but in view of the statistical methods of Mann, Hansen, etc., pardon me if I am cynical about the validity of these methods. Perhaps Steve McIntyre can analyze them with the same bulldog determination that he displays in debunking Mann et al.
C Lampert,
Don’t forget the first storm of the year, Arthur. It was a “tropical storm” for, perhaps, a few hours before landfall. I saw no defined rotation or eye, and the highest wind speed I saw at landfall was 23 mph.
It was the equivalent of a sunspeck.
Will Small and other unfortunate disillusioned unhappy individuals.
I say unhappy, because you are so eager to crawl under a rock
and stop living; run for cover Will, the sky is falling, the sky is falling!
Reality is,,,, the weather is the weather, and the weather changes, always has, always will,,, (no pun intended Will), so sit back Will, re-adjust your tin foil hat and just wait for a little while longer before begging them to accept more money for everything you depend upon in order to have the lifestyle that you and everyone deserves.
The earth is cooling and soon even the likes of you will have no doubt as each year continues getting colder and colder and colder for who knows how long.
The earth stopped cooling in January, when we had the ‘perfect storm’ combination of cooling factors – strong la nina, strong solar minimum and strongly negative PDO. This cooling pushed temperature right down to around the bottom end of the preditions of the IPCC.
Since then tha la nina has faded (although showing recent signs of new life), and temperatures have been on the way back up again. Solar is still very low, and PDO is still quite negative. Where will temperatures be when we get to the next solar maximum?
“Me:
Jim – you mis-spelled naive. Exactly, short term sacrifice means that people have pain. Prices go up. Quality of life goes down. People die in riots. Precisely. That’s where this is heading with or w/o addressing carbon. Over 350ppm we’re in serious trouble.”
Will…thank you for the valuable spelling lesson.
My understanding is that we’re already over 350ppm. Prove that this puts us “in serious trouble”.
I agree that we’re IN serious trouble, btw, but not for the reasons you promote.
JimB
They have assigned names to storms that I am POSITIVE 10-15 years ago would have never recieved a name.
We call them “Tiny Tims”.
Is that sufficient proof now that GW/AGW is a real phenomenon requiring immediate action?
I compliment you for a straight and respectful argument. (Though I would ask that you lose the term “deniers”. It is evocative and derivative of the term “holocaust denier” and adds bad vibes to the discussion.)
But, no, and especially no.
The whole point of the Spencer study is that, yes, there is more water in the lower troposphere, but that it has not gone to ambient vapor (which would induce positive feedback) but instead has gone to low-level cloud cover which has increased albedo and created a negative feedback. I grant that the LT contains more water (though obviously not more heat). But the middle and upper troposphere appear to be a bit drier during this period, and that’s where the danger (supposedly) is. Anthony posted on this a few months ago.
We still have to wait a few years to be sure, but I don’t see any positive feedback or warming, either, for that matter. I don’t guarantee that you are wrong. But I doubt you are right.
Furthermore, during the time period covered by the study 2003 to 2008, temperatures are down, not up. Yes, that is only a five-year period, but with the PDO reversal and what looks like a nasty winter ahead, they won’t be headed back up for at least a while.
As for “immediate action”, there is no evidence whatever that this is imperative, particularly in light of the PDO reversal and the very real possibility of a grand solar minimum in this or the next cycle. I think we have a few years to observe and evaluate.
And I very much doubt that the type of action I would advocate (i.e., stoke up those energy plants – we need the wealth to create those pole-to-pole satellite reflectors) would satisfy you. But they would cost less than two year’s worth of Kyoto or Stern.
The precautionary principle is not at issue. The appeal to Pascal does not apply. Pascal pertains only in the case of small or no sacrifice. But the loss of 1% or more of GWP per year is staggering – the rich will merely be inconvenienced, but the poorest of the world will suffer greatly and there will be many more deaths from poverty (the greatest killer of all) than in the normal course of events.
Lomborg quotes a study that claims over four times as many would die from the effects of cold than the effects of heat by 2050 even if the IPCC estimates are correct.
It’s a small price to pay to continue to sustain life on the planet as we know it. Don’t you think? Let’s think long term and not be short-sighted.
If there were a.) better evidence of AGW, and b.) no alternative, then I would agree with you. But I doubt case “a” and doubt case “b” even more so, even if “a” turns out to be true. I see carbon caps as a death sentence for millions. I see far less cost in blood or treasure for the satellite alternative. In addition, given case “a” I doubt carbon caps would work worth a damn, and a satellite solution (or some other direct “non-green” fix) would be the only effective alternative – and many times more practical than carbon caps (append skull and crossbones thereto).
P.S.: Let us PLEASE be respectful to Will. His arguments deserve reasonable answers. He is no fool even if he may not have considered every angle. I consider him a positive addition to our DIVERSE mix.
@Ken
Ease up on Will – he is justified (excused) in his point of view with the MSM information on the subject. He states himself that he is at this website to learn and actually produces valid questions based on scientific ‘theories’. I do hope you are rigth and with another decade of cooling trends we can leave some of this hysteria behind and move on to subjects around the globe that truly matters – and in our lifetime.
@Will
With regards to your comments on ‘small price to pay’ – you are right and you are wrong. If we stick to an IPCC view of AGW we are still lacking a reason for implementing Cap and Trade mecanisms. As an illustrative point we are more accustumed to evaluating political proposals on other issues were we might also agree with the aim, e.g. education, health, crime-fighting etc.. I would not expect you to agree with any and every political proposal aimed at these issues as you would probably consider their ‘real’ effect vs. their costs or vs. choosing a different approach where they are mutually exclusive. Please extent the same consideration to a cap and trade system before just jumping onboard based solely on agreeing with the stated aim. Fact is with Kyoto in Europe we are not seeing a lot of results in reality. Sure the Kyoto accounting standard for emmissions are declining but research from e.g. Stockholm Institute of Environment at York University find that in reality our emissions are increasing (carbon footprint). All we have managed is to close down parts of production in Europe and move them elsewhere, i.e. outside Kyoto-countries or to EC-members which was given increased emmission allowances (e.g. most of Eastern Europe). That is just plain stupid if we believe in the IPCC climate projections. All we have accomplished is to waste one of the key resources, namely time (and a sh.. load of cash besides that). In a globalized world with International trade flowing more freely than ever regionalised attempts to curtail emmissions will simply not work efficiently. Similarly you do no longer in the US (or other countries for that matter) see economists propose strong ‘trickle-down-effect’ on the economy, where what was ‘good’ for the rich would end up being good for the relatively poorer. In todays world extra money for the rich only marginally increases their domestic spending – the bulk goes for travel and international purchases. Apply the same principles to Cap and Trade on a regional scale which Kyoto is – and so far the Copenhagen agenda is – and you have a pretty good idea why it is not working as intended. Another point on regionalized proposals is how the IEA Energy Outlook 2008 report expects that 97% of the increase in emmisions are from non-OECD countries, i.e. the 2nd and 3rd world. They actually conclude that even if OECD completely stopped emissions completely (Zero CO2-equivalents) it would not be enough to attain the 450 ppm goal of the IPCC. The Kyoto logic behind only focusing on Annex1 countries was one of ‘guilt’/morals rather than efficiancy in obtaining the goal – or even a real effect. The moral argument alone decided the regional approach and while it indeed have some normative value it has none whatsoever in terms of logical thinking. Analogous you dont extend native-americans different rules and laws in society at large in the US (i.e. outside of ‘reservations’).
With regards to the ‘trade’ part consider these comments from one of the worlds leading economists Jeffrey Sachs. http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4988X020081009
Just in case you dont know him, he is not some ‘obscure’ all out neo-liberal simply claiming no-state involvement as the solution to everything. He is one of the key architects behind dismantling the “Washington concensus” methodology of the IMF and partially World Bank and a key driver in changing the way we today approach development issues. Besides that especially his comments on not relying on experimenting with financial engineering deserves some consideration in these times.
Please notice that all this critique was written under an assumption of IPCC projections being correct. However ‘agreeing’ with AGW theory should not be an excuse for blindly accepting any and all proposals to address the issue. And certainly not with general arguments about ‘small price’, long- vs. short time focus etc.. Not joining the Kyoto was probably the smartest thing the Bush Administration did. Consider how the aim for the US was to reduce emmisions to 7% less than 1990 level. Today you are 50 million people more in the US than in 90. It would have been virtually impossible and in general all you would have accomplished would be to outsource even more production to China, Asia in general, Mexico and even Canada. Your Kyoto accounted emissions would have dropped nicely as a result. However your actual emmissions based on consumption would have increased as production in those countries (except Canada) are a lot less energy efficient plus calls for increased transportation (shipping) with related increased emissions.
Apologize for any bad spelling and grammar. I am posting this from Denmark and English is not my first language. Also sorry for not being strictly OT.
Will Small, an old proverb: Empty pitchers make the most noise.
Mikkel:
Well spoken in any language.
The only spot I disagree with you on is the wealth of the rich. The rich invest their money and it trickles down indirectly everywhere, both domestically and in the poorest countries where it saves countless lives. In the Old Days, the rich buried their gold in the courtyard (and maybe strangled the servant that did it for good measure). But these are no longer the old days and the rich do not pile their treasure in a heap and sleep on it for a bed. They create businesses, hire people, invest it, or bank it with someone who will. Look at the periods of history where the “gap between rich and poor” increased. We call those “good times”. And look at the periods of history where it decreased. We call those “hard times” – especially for the poor. (I speak as a poor person.)
Will Small,
Whats a “denyer”?
You make quite a few wild assumptions about positive feedback ‘proofs’ and quoting Hanson isnt going to win you many converts here as he has shown himself to be an AGW/MMCC extremist with a rather plastic view on scientific reality.
I note that the main planks of your arguments for positive feedback are at best hypothetical, a main supplier of atmospheric oxygen/consumer of atmospheric carbon is the northern forests that surround the arctic circle and these are showing an increase in carbon take up not a decline.
The point about the ‘four key carbon sinks’ only apply IF AGW is real and warming is actually occurring which it clearly isnt at present, the northern permafrost ring isnt melting is it? The mature rain forests take up less CO2 than the new agricultural lands that surround them and per active intensively farmed hectare the farmed land produces roughly the same O2 as the mature rain forest, the argument for retaining tropical rain forests like the Amazon basin forests is a biodiversity argument NOT a carbon/oxygen cycle argument
I understand your points are based on many ‘ifs’ and ‘coulds’ and ‘mays’, if the planets heats up to a critical point, could lead to a mass release of stored carbon, may result in positive feedback amplification are just a few of the assumptions you make, there is an old saying where I come from, ‘if ifs and ands were pots and pans there’d be no need for tinkers’, you make a great many assumptions based on events that have not occurred and quote sources that have a vested interest in AGW/MMCC theory.
Your post rests on just one basic proposition and that is a continued and marked warming of the planet, everything you claim may happen in the future rests entirely on the assumption of continued global warming and continuous ramping up of global temperatures BUT the uncomfortable fact(for warmists)is that global temperatures are no following the AGW/MMCC preset political directives, they are in fact following a completely different path better fitting a long term natural cyclic variation based on solar activity and earths variable orbit.
You see IF we were to strip away the ‘ifs’ and ‘mays’ and ‘coulds’ from the whole climate debate and stick to observable facts and reality,cold hard facts measured without bias then I feel we may be able to move the debate forward but untill we have this I fear the debate will not progress much beyond the current finger pointing.
Disclaimer, I am not a scientist nor do I have any scientific qualification, some of my points made could well be mistaken and I would value any corrections offered.
Mikkel, you English is better than many (most?) native speakers.
From the wayback machine… I year (or two?) ago there was some hurricane whose name I don’t remember that was a Cat 5 for about 10? hours out in the middle of the Gulf. The weather droid even woke me up by saying that in the recent past they would have never called it a Cat 5 because the weather plane didn’t sample often enough to have caught that blip. Only with the advent of doppler radar did they catch this kind of data…
One is left to wonder how much of the ‘most strong storms ever’ is due to doppler… and how many 10 hour hurricanes are now named…
Cap & Trade: The problems here are legion. Chief among them are China and India. All C&T does is guarantee a fatter profit and greater growth rate for India and China (oh, and move a boat load of money out of the productive part of the economy and into taxes…)
Deniers: This is a code word that is intended to slander skeptics. It is one of the best ways to spot someone with a koolaid addiction I know of.
Greenhouses regularly run at 1000 ppm CO2 and plants love it. Workers in them don’t really notice anything at all. That idea that 3xx ppm is a problem is just broken.
Puritans & Guilt: There is a fascinating social detail. The AGW fans have a significant percentage of guilt, fear, and loathing of humanity with a universally pessimistic tilt. The skeptics have a far higher number of positive folks who are assured about the future and comfortable with their place in it. Don’t know what it means, but I’m starting to agree with whoever posted that AGW was the new Puritanism… complete with the desire for witches to be burned… figuratively of course.
A google of ‘November 2008 “record cold”‘ gave 28,500 hits. There has been record cold and unseasonable snow all over the place. Were now at 6 days of no sunspots; again. It’s cold and it’s going to get colder. This is not just some local weather thing. Australia, Canada, UK with 5” snow, Swiss snow, Alaska, Florida, China. The list goes on.
And finally, it’s well documented that raising the standard of living reduces births and enables folks to afford the luxury of preserving endangered species and wild lands. Its just as well proven that poverty brings environmental destruction. The problem with Kyoto and related agreements is that it brings poverty and THAT will lead to environment destruction.
evanjones
Overall agreeing with your point. My bad for missing to point out the domestic in my talk of reclining dynamic effects from trickle down. Just sticking purely to accepted models rather than opinion: As an economy become relatively more open and relatively smaller (to others) both will reduce the domestic trickle down dynamics. The same principle apply to the Kyoto approach to emissions where the exact same drivers of international trade will merely disperse emissions to other places. In a globalized world, regionalised (or domestic) approaches will simply not work as intended. All in (global) or no point in such programs.
mr.artday
Pitchers? I thought it was:
“Empty wagons make the most noise.”
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/English_proverbs
MattN said
“I say: No kidding! You named a 14mph clump of thunderstorms with ZERO defined eye much less circulation the instant it came off the African continent. When you do stuff like that, it’s not a surprise it’s the longest lived storm. Not saying it didn’t (eventually) deserve to be named, but come on! Naming that storm at that time was serious BS. Then declaring it the longest lived July storm ever when you pull a stunt like that is insulting to anyone who stops to think about what just happened.”
That’s incorrect though, it did have circulation even before it was named a stopical storm, see here
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=972&tstamp=
Wind speeds were 35mph+ .
Just because it doesn’t look like what you wish it to look like does not mean it is not what it is ! 🙂 It was a tropical storm.
Of course you could argue that without satellites you would’t have spotted it as early so it wouldn’t have been classified to have lasted so long, but that’s another argument.
Regards
Andy
Mikkel,
Your English is significantly better than my Danish will ever be….
2008 VRS 1969
I thought it would be interesting to compare these two seasons. Assuming there are no additional storms this year. Raw data comes from Wiki.
2008 had 16 systems (not counting depressions) of these 8 became hurricanes for 50%. There was an average max. wind speed for these 16 storms was 89mph. There was a total of 105 storm days. With an average of 6.5 days/storm.
1969 Had 17 systems. 12 became hurricanes. For 70%. Two tropical storms were never named. (TS 11 and TS 16) Two hurricanes, were never named. (Hurricane 10, and 17) The average max. winds for these 17 storms was 94 mph. There was a total of 128 storm days. Or an average of 7.6 per storm.
I also looked at the 1893 Hurricane season. There were only 9 systems listed. All Hurricanes. With an average of 105 mph per system.
It’s hard to take these folks serious.
Interesting trivia. Being NOAA wants to talk about records.
On Feb 2, 1952 a tropical storm formed in the NW Caribbean. It eventually goes over Key West and up the eastern seaboard.
March 6, 1908 A system was observed NE of the Lesser Antillies and becomes a cat 2 hurricane before dispating March 9th.
NOAA may want to adjust the data some more.
Have a great Thanksgiving everyone.
Will Small makes good arguments, so the kind of replies that artday types make “Empty pitchers make the most noise.” should be read as it reads: noise.
Go on, mr. Small, I am enjoying the discussion.