Bob Tisdale writes in with:
What Do You Suppose They’ve Been Doing At The National Hurricane Center This Summer?
http://i27.tinypic.com/im1m2r.gif
Source: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
Bocce maybe? Horseshoes?
UPDATE – Ryan Maue of Florida State University writes in comments:
Global (Northern Hemisphere) tropical cyclone ACE for the months May – June – July is the lowest in at least the past 30-years or more.
I, for one, am not surprised. Continued inactivity should persist for the next few weeks until the atmosphere catches up with the radiative warming of the tropical oceans due to the season called summer.
2007 was a dud. 2008 was saved from being a record year by 2007. 2009 is behind the pace of both years. Amazing how natural variability affects tropical cyclone formation, tracks, and intensity. Who would have thought?
Ryan’s Tropical web page at Florida State University has this graph that shows accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) :
Sorted monthly data: Text File
Note where 2009 is in the scheme of things.
Global (Northern Hemisphere) tropical cyclone ACE for the months May – June – July is the lowest in at least the past 30-years or more.
I, for one, am not surprised. Continued inactivity should persist for the next few weeks until the atmosphere catches up with the radiative warming of the tropical oceans due to the season called summer.
2007 was a dud. 2008 was saved from being a record year by 2007. 2009 is behind the pace of both years. Amazing how natural variability affects tropical cyclone formation, tracks, and intensity. Who would have thought?
Revising predictions.
See those blue colors surfacing along peruvian costs? That´s humbold currents´cold waters surfacing, fighting against the red&oranges noaa´s jet printing. That means exausted surface water heat. Gulf waters are just light orange predicting no hurricanes.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomw.7.27.2009.gif
Since I live on the coast of Georgia , I watch tropical weather activity pretty closely . The Atlantic basin has been awfully quiet this year – a couple of tropical waves , but no depressions – so far . This is unusual . However , as stated in other comments , things don’t really crank up for another few weeks . As always , I’m hoping for a quiet season . BTW , it has not been a particularily hot summer yet . August will tell though…
It´s time for Bill Gates´hurricanes abatement engineering….or will dismiss it like vista´s?
I’m surprised by how closely that graph above matches the ups and downs of the solar cycles 20 through 23.
Draw a line down across the peaks from 1971 to 2008 and it’s an accurate reflection of the slow weakening of those cycles over the period.
Modified slightly by El Nino and La Nina events.
Given the smallness of solar variation and the time lags caused by oceanic variability even I was expecting a much less obvious relationship.
More thought needed by the climate establishment ?
SST’s are not high currently, El Nino is getting slightly more active and SSA is a bit dusty, so all the long track hurricanes are on hold until the season really starts. Indeed I thought most early Atlantic hurricanes at this time of year start in the Caribbean?
Saying there is not much activity at the moment is like claiming there is a lot of Arctic ice about in May, ie it doesn’t really matter.
Regards
Andy
The Atlantic has developed its own mini-La Nina-like state right now so we shouldn’t expect sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic tropical storm formation zone to reach normal levels this year.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.7.27.2009.gif
http://www.ecmwf.int/products/forecasts/d/getchart/catalog/products/forecasts/ocean/real_time/xzmaps!20090729!Anomaly!Temperature!chart.gif
Sorry, link to the chart of equatorial upper ocean heat anomaly didn’t show up. Here’s the page.
http://www.ecmwf.int/products/forecasts/d/charts/ocean/real_time/xzmaps/
What Do You Suppose They’ve Been Doing At The National Hurricane Center This Summer?
Holding a “Go Fish” tournament to determine who gets an office with a window at the new $50M hurricane center.
Actually that’s a computer model of “Go Fish” which predicts that everyone will win, and everyone will lose.
KZimman wrote wait until Sept.
Yes, Sept is usually when things kick in down there, however, I would suggest we just wait until the end of the season and then do a post mortem on it.
I believe the cooler the earth gets, the more these hurricanes will kick in again…
IMHO
Ryan Maue (10:57:13)
“Amazing how natural variability affects tropical cyclone formation, tracks, and intensity. Who would have thought?”
Well, apparently not UCAR, way back in 2006…
http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/hurricanes.shtml
Global Warming Surpassed Natural Cycles in Fueling 2005 Hurricane Season, NCAR Scientists Conclude
June 22, 2006
BOULDER—Global warming accounted for around half of the extra hurricane-fueling warmth in the waters of the tropical North Atlantic in 2005, while natural cycles were only a minor factor, according to a new analysis by Kevin Trenberth and Dennis Shea of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The study will appear in the June 27 issue of Geophysical Research Letters, published by the American Geophysical Union.
“The global warming influence provides a new background level that increases the risk of future enhancements in hurricane activity,” Trenberth says. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, NCAR’s primary sponsor.
The study contradicts recent claims that natural cycles are responsible for the upturn in Atlantic hurricane activity since 1995. It also adds support to the premise that hurricane seasons will become more active as global temperatures rise. Last year produced a record 28 tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic. Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma all reached Category 5 strength.
If I may say so: No contest. The winner here is JAN (10:08:31) :
“Maybe they’ve just been going around in circles?”
Ryan Maue (10:57:13) :Who would have thought?…Obviously WUWT
What are the employees at NHC doing? Probably seeing their doctors about their CTS from playing too much spider solitaire. Counting the number of holes in the ceiling tiles. Holding staring contests. Picking lint out of their belly-buttons. The list is endless.
I found some information about when the first named storms usually form. A write-up is here:
http://wxtalk.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/all-quiet-on-the-atlantic-front/
Original info from the Caribbean Hurricane Network is here:
http://stormcarib.com/climatology/first1886.htm
Skeptic Tank (09:52:28) :
Not that unusual. Hurricane Andrew didn’t strike until the last week in August, which is when things really pick up.
OK, you’re not the only one to bring up Andrew (1992), but it formed mid August, and it would have been the SECOND named storm of the year using today’s standard – that first storm forming in APRIL. There were also multiple tropical depressions before Andrew, whereas we have only had one this year that hardly rates a sniffle, much less a sneeze.
That being said, I agree with all those who say to wait until the first week of September before getting too excited…
Quiet sun = fewer large cyclones.
Current theory about the formation of tropical cyclones, hurricanes, and tornadoes fails to take into account that the origin of these phenomna take place under conditions of an abnormally strong electric fields which together with electromagnetohydrodynamic interaction occupies a key position in the intensification process.
As the sun is a major suppler of electricity to the earth, I thnk the lack of solar actvity at the moment means the earths electromagnetc field is too weak to fuel these energetc events.
What is the strength/location of the Bermuda High this year relative to previous years? How have the trade winds been in the tropical Atlantic? Strong trade winds will cool the water surface like a fan blowing on a wet towel. You won’t get much formation over cooler water. Location of the Bermuda High will give you some clue as to the track storms are likely to take. If it is positioned more to the South and West, you will see storms pushed into the Gulf. If it is more to the North and East, the Atlantic coast has a better chance of being in the track but too far East and the storms will miss the coast altogether and curve before making landfall. Probably the worst possible scenario would be a weak-ish Bermuda High sitting right over Bermuda with sluggish trades.
Bill Illis
This chart shows Atlantic tropical waters being on the cool side. Note the big horseshoe of cold water.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
Still, the Carribean is a little warm, and that ought to be a factor in spawning hurricanes.
Pamela Gray (09:45:12) :
“The primary reason for no hurricanes in the Gulf is because the jet stream is too far North”
Pamela we’re being told in eastern Canada and the NE USA that the reason we have had no summer this year is because the jet stream too far south! WUWT?
The NHC and TWC caveats have been humorous. Today TWC says: “At this time, it appears the Atlantic Basin will not see its first named storm before August 1st. This is not too uncommon, as about 25% of the time the first named storm does not occur until August. The last time this happened was 2004 when Alex was named on the first day in August.”
It may not be common (25%), but how does that reconcile with the AGW gloom and doom of “more frequent and stronger hurricanes”?
I live on the northen Gulf Coast, and for years those with a vested interest have been hyping the frequency and strength of storms. We have noticed the NOAA hurricane updates repeatedly overstate the strength of the storms. The hurricane hunters will go out and send back data, which NOAA will convert into an update. Yet, the estimated strength does NOT correlate with the buoy data, even when the longitude and latitude of the eye of the storm is virtually on top of the buoy. The buoys are online at the National Data Buoy Center website – http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov.
You can review the buoy data for the 12 hours before a storm reaches the buoy, and for the 12 hours after the storm passes the buoy, and the wind speed and gust speed recorded by the buoy is ALWAYS less than the NOAA updates, generally by about 30%. We have had a general suspicion for some time that the measure of sustained wind speed has been replaced by estimated wind gusts. How often does the NOAA estimated wind speed UNDERSTATE the wind speed. How often do you see a headline indicating the storm was stronger than anticipated?
We have had a number of coastal storms the past couple of months here in NYC metro area. This pattern of coastal storms, humidity (but not a lot of heat) and some really wicked thunderstorms (I had a funnel cloud pass over my apartment building on Sunday) seems to be holding as the weeks pass.
Could a quieter tropic mean more severe weather for the mid-Atlantic states?
I was wondering when someone was going to comment on this. 🙂 Two named hurricanes this year, no major land hits is my prediction. My model is very accurate.. lol really it is.. hehe ..
*flips over the last tarot card* and you will meet a tall dark stranger in September:P