Guest post by Ric Werme
The CSU Klotzbach/Gray Aug 18-31 hurricane forecast is out. Based on the NOAA historical tropical storm and hurricane frequency below, they are betting on an uptick in activity.
They’re still looking for active weather:
We expect that the next two weeks will be characterized by heightened amounts (130 percent or more) of activity relative to climatology.
More:
The above-average forecast is due to a combination of factors. The primary factor is that most of the global models are very enthusiastic about TC development over the next few days. Most of the models indicate that the wave currently moving off of the west coast of Africa will develop into a classic Cape Verde-type hurricane in the next few days. These systems typically propagate across the tropical Atlantic and generate large amounts of ACE in the process. Most of the models indicate that the system should be entering an environment favorable for storm intensification, and therefore, the likelihood of this system having a long lifespan across the basin looks good. Models also indicate that TC development in the western Caribbean as well as additional development in the tropical Atlantic also is possible over the next week or so. We do not expect the MJO to play much of a role in modulating storm activity, and since we overall have very favorable climate conditions for an active season, we believe that the next two weeks should be active.
So, things are primed and ready to fire, it’s just that the trigger isn’t here yet, but it’s coming. (Barring unforseen events. There’s always that out….)
They also look at the past two-week forecast:
The two-week forecast of tropical cyclone activity from August 4 – August 17 did not verify well. Activity at above-average levels was predicted, while observed activity was at below-average levels. The primary reasons why we believe activity was reduced during the two-week period were due to dry mid levels in the atmosphere and increased vertical stability This dryness was not expected. Also, several upper-level cold lows intruded into the tropics during the period, imparting upper-level westerly shear and hindering storm formation. However, it is not unusual for the first half of August to be almost tropical cyclone-free.
The only ACE generated during the period was by the remnants of Tropical Storm Colin that regenerated on August 5 but was then torn apart by shearing from an upper-level low on August 8. Our forecast was for an above-average ACE value of 10 or more units (>130% of climatology), while a below-average ACE of 2 units (22%) occurred. The Madden-Julian Oscillation was of a fairly weak magnitude throughout the period and likely did not play much of a role in modulating TC activity.
So, a good collection of suppressors – dry mid-level air and upper level shear
blowing the cloud tops off. While K&G have said the short time frame makes it
difficult come up with meaningful comparisons, predicting > 130% and getting
only 22% must be tough to see.
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As much as I hope that we have yet another relatively quiet hurricane season , I can’t help but remember ’05 when tropical activity didn’t really get going until Sept. and lasted into Dec. . Hurricanes are tricky – they can defy even the best forecasts .
Richard Holle says:
August 17, 2010 at 8:58 pm
This will be very interesting for you. Perhaps you could apply this theory for other kind of forecasts, which will be welcomed too:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/28560923/Earthquake-Planets-2
Tim says:
August 18, 2010 at 1:19 am
Science must be entering a new state when scientists openly attribute human feelings to climate models.
Is the relationship between man and machine becoming unhealthy? We know us non-scientists are often accused of having a suspect relationship with our cars or our table saws – but Scientists ?
Could saying climate models are garbage be seen as a hate-crime?
As my old grandmother used to say – “if you’re in love with a dung-heap, you won’t see a bad straw in it”.
———
There are so many candidates for Quote of the Week in Tim’s comment that I therefore nominate the whole thing.
Dan
So, let’s see how busy and scary the hurricane nursery is.
“All quiet for now
Kevin Roth, Lead Meteorologist, The Weather Channel
Aug. 18, 2010 5:24 am ET
There are no active tropical cyclones anywhere on the globe today.
A tropical wave moving westward through the central Caribbean Sea shows no signs of development. However, it will bring some locally heavy rainfall to Hispaniola, Jamaica and eastern Cuba today. Lighter showers from the wave could fall as far east as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Way out in the eastern Atlantic, near the Cape Verde Islands, is a fledgling area of lower pressure with disorganized shower and thunderstorm activity. This area has the potential to organize and develop over the next few days, possibly becoming a tropical depression during the second half of the week.”
So what we have at the moment is one newborn low pressure making a bit of noise. That’s it folks. The nursery is not afoul with screaming babies, no one is growing to adulthood in some freak of nature way, and in fact, the Atlantic nursery is awash in the sound of…wait for it…snoring.
By pure chance they have to get a forecast right sometime, they have no skill they are just guessing, I can do that!
But yet, the oceans are silent
Gentlemen ,
Am I allowed to play the devils lawyer ? NOAA probably through intervention of its main administrator , appointed by mr. B.O. himself , has nearly manipulated all available data to prove that 2010 will be the hottest year ever as they have alreay forecasted on every possible opportunity this year ! Right ? Well , has all the SST data from satellites , i presume , gone totally untouched ? Then the burocrats have probably done only a partial job in manipulation of the data . Would rather the opposite be true that the burocrats were very loyal and probably too loyal? Right ?
If the light of this hurricane season slowly fading with higher than usual temperatures nearly everywhere on the maps and the temperatures are the main drivers of hurricane intensity could there possibly be something very wrong with the basic temperatures of the SST – maps ? The proof of the pudding is in the eating and the proof of warming is in the hurricanes so the absence is showing ? What exactly ?
Luckily there is a new army of knights, Anthony among them, reincarnated from above, who brandishing big swords, shaped like the awful and meaningful hermetic caduceus, and throwing out powerful and blazing Birkeland’s currents will spin the heads of those evil ones in a 270 degrees turn.
Barring unforseen events.
If they can’t forsee events how can they predict the future?
intrepid_wanders says:
August 18, 2010 at 8:21 am
Anomalies don’t drive hurricane formation. If you look at the actual temperature loop there’s little or no cooling to see in the development region. See http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst_loop.gif The anomaly loop is useful to show there’s catching up to do.
I don’t think K&G have increased their ACE prediction, they’ve maintained it at as a percentage of average.
PhilJourdan says:
August 18, 2010 at 8:59 am
That doesn’t seem supported by K&G forecasts. 2005 finished with a Net Tropical Cyclone Activity (like ACE but a percentage of average) of 279. In various June forecasts, the predicted -> actual amounts were:
2004: 145 -> 232
2005: 170 -> 279
2006: 195 -> 85 (That year an El Nino squashed the latter half of the season)
2007: 185 -> 99
2008: 160 -> 162 (The August forecast was for 190 – oh well) ACE: 150-> 146
2009: 90 -> 69 ACE 85 -> 53
So last year was forecasted to be less than average and in no season did they predict a repeat of 2005. The “normal to low” terminology, IIRC, is from NOAA’s forecasts. I don’t follow them closely, they don’t go into the same level of detail that K&G do, but they do a better job quantifying their uncertainty.
Perhaps you can find the past NOAA forecasts and compare their recent seasons.
Hmm, ok, I’ll give it a shot, with my skills developed looking at a large plot board of the WestPac and trying to devine if, as an aircrew sluggo, I’d be likely to deploy for a ‘Phoon Evac from Okinawa to points elsewhere, based on grease pencil smudges, etc. Ahem.
Looking at the picture available at StormPulse (http://www.stormpulse.com/fullscreen/current) with the clouds switched on. . .
The ‘potential tropical depression’ around 140 miles S of Jamaica – nothingburger there.
Looking East. Two potentially interesting blobs, a bit southerly, but still, in the mid-Atlantic zone, 50/50 chance that one or the other will ‘pop’, even though they’re not ID’d as potentials yet. The rather sizeable wave discussed in the article is visible on the African West Coast, but appears rather un-energetic and disorganized.
Looking at the circulation patterns over the US via the East CONUS IR Loop (http://www.goes.noaa.gov/GSSLOOPS/ecir.html) I don’t see enough organization of frontal/jetstream activity, other than a recurrent, semi stationary NE/SW afternoon T-storm line over the Southeast.
So, my prediction.
1 Named Storm. It shoots across the outer islands, skirts Cuba, enters the Gulf, smacks Mexico.
Enneagram says:
August 18, 2010 at 10:24 am
Richard Holle says:
August 17, 2010 at 8:58 pm
This will be very interesting for you. Perhaps you could apply this theory for other kind of forecasts, which will be welcomed too:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/28560923/Earthquake-Planets-2
Reply; Thanks for the link…
I looked at some of the data from separate areas of the world, Japan, Turkey, and California / Nevada Back in the late 80’s and found there are signals in the synod conjunctions and solar / lunar syzygy that were consistent with the tidal effects being most significant when the moon was overhead with in 15 to 20 degrees, due to solid earth tidal bulge local effects, increased the possibility of stress changes that allowed or forced things to move, with good correlation of increased total number and quake strength.
My son in law installed windows 2000 on a separate hard drive on my machine, in 2005, and with out thinking OK’ed the reformatting of ALL 4 hard drives to a Fat32 format….
Lost all of my friend’s email contacts, and prior down loaded data, pictures, text files, pdf’s of research to reference to, stored maps, graphs, links to data, passwords, software totally gone…I have found some of the graphs from using the way back machine…(I now do a complete backup 1st week of every month.)
When I get time I will reprocess the data (re-down loaded it now) and post it to my research pages, working on whole disk IR GOES 11-12 data base now for the creation of an animated movie, to show lunar declinational movement patterns.
I have down loaded the daily ACE data, and am processing it onto spread sheets as I am waiting for ftp notice of fresh GOES data to download. Still trying to keep up with reading 8 to 10 blogs a day.
Yes there is hope for quake forecasting, for increased risk and chance per periods of time when influence is strongest, I have not YET seen anything that would be able to forecast specific quake locations on specific dates. Then again I don’t have any data on residual strain for individual fault systems monitored on an hourly basis.
Somehow this year’s seeming lack of a strong SW monsoon in West Africa inspires the WAG that relatively few easterly waves will develop into full-blown hurricanes.
There are major pattern changes occurring over over the tropical and subtropical North Atlantic.
That monster upper-level low over the Azores that has been spinning and shearing apart any chance of tropical cyclone development, has now been replaced with a large area of high pressure.
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/natl/flash-wv.html
This along with with unusually high Atlantic SSTs is the more traditional pattern of Atlantic TC development.
One theory is that all of the intense bubbles of heat across the globe, pushed unusually large amounts of dry air into the upper levels of the atmosphere, which has inhibited development.
Those “bubbles” of hot dry air, are rapidly breaking down.
Watch as the upward motion machine takes over and the Cape Verde train sputters to a start.
I hate to say it, because I live right on the vulnerable east coast, but hurricane season is just beginning.
It will be a long season too….with these SST’s…..well into October, maybe even November.
Delayed, but not denied. Ugh.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
A test of a theory.
IF this hurricane season is influenced by sunspot activity, if the hurricane season is under the influence of the Iceland volcano and if the Earth retaining significant global warming heat,
THEN, we should have the next 3 to 4 named storms spread out over the next 10 weeks.
The season should finish in October.
Reference: 1913 Hurricane Season
Most Sincerely,
Paul Pierett
Your “theory” is just a guess at most, bud.
That is alot of “ifs”….and the last two [the Iceland volcano and what “earth retaining global warming heat”] almost non sequtiurs…make your “then” even more implausible.
There are more proven direct influences on tropical cyclone formation, such as abnormally high SST’s, large scale upward motion fields, and favorable atmospheric conditions.
Better deal with them first.
And 1913 was a negative AMO year, so that no doubt had a direct influence on the low tropical cyclone turnout that year.
I fear this season. Something has got me very nervous about the next two months.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
RE: savethesharks says:
August 18, 2010 at 8:25 pm
“I fear this season. Something has got me very nervous about the next two months.”
One reason I check up on what’s up on WUWT is to see what experts think. However I also want to know what more ordinary folk think, for there is something to be said for old-fashioned intuition.
It only takes one hurricane to remind people that such storms, though rare, can clobber Virginia. And Joe Bastardi does suggest the season may block the usual route out to sea, and encourage a so-called “short-cut storm” to head straight northwest into the US mainland.
If Mother Nature is irked enough by the idiots in Washington, a lone hurricane will head straight up the Potomac and clobber the capital, sort like the blizzards did last winter
“I fear this season. Something has got me very nervous about the next two months.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA”
Hello, Chris.
I think you would be right if the jets (or rather all the air circulation systems) were more poleward but as things stand the equatorward position is apparently blocking the free movement of energy required to release the energy in tropical latitudes in the form of explosive convective activity.
The latitudinal position of the air circulation systems is not dictated solely by a single phenomenon such as the AMO. It is a balancing act between solar effects from above and the netted out global oceanic conditions from below at any given moment.
At least that is my judgement from the oservational evidence and the current scenario is a good test of it.
Well Dude,
My work is a nationalforestlawblog.com
October Newsletter
Under my Name.
I was right last year. I guessed about 10. Last year we had nine
The Earth is cooling, not warming.
Someone is cooking the books at our nations capitals. Who could that be? Global warming alarmists in the Directorships?
Who needs Al Gore’s protesters in the streets when our governments are saturated with “Chicken Littles” who are global warming alarmists?
*Interesting that a Vice President and potential President of the United States, billionaire and Nobel Peace Prize Recipient is calling for an out pouring into the streets by global warming alarmists. How much damage did they do in Copenhagen and London last year trying to intimidate UN representatives at the big meeting in Copenhagen in December?
Why? What is motivating Al to do that? More money? Needs to pay for his divorce? Massages? Cap and trade investments on the line?
Anyway, if it were not for Al, I wouldn’t know as much as I do today.
Ozone critical numbers have dropped in the last 3 years. Humidity is dropping in the upper atmosphere.
Last year’s winter temperatures dropped to 1984 numbers.
When the US winter temperatures drop below 33 degrees, last winter was around 31, it is very difficult to have the predicted number of storms projected by CSU, MET, NOAA and the Insurance research people.
Hurricanes are a global warming even(.
How can a global warming event increase while the cause is decreasing.
See you at Thanksgiving. Turkey or Crow, Dude?.Small menu!.
Stack your firewood a little higher and make the rows a little longer.
Sincerely,
Paul Pierett
The article states “We expect that the next two weeks will be characterized by heightened amounts (130 percent or more) of activity relative to climatology.”
We are just a day or so into the forecast period. There are no tropical depreassions even, anywhere to be seen, or expected. If the 130% is to be correct, I suggest there needs to be at least one hurricane occurring before the 30th August. Does anyone have an estimate of the latest date the first hurricane must start, if the 130% forecast is to be correct?
Today’s Global vapor satellite animation shows both the domes in the North and South Atlantic still in place.
The storm that came off the coast of Africa yesterday survived. It was steered down by the dome in the N. Atlantic to around 10D N. latitude.
The cloud area is between satellites at the moment so I can’t tell if there is rotation for another four to eight hours, although the vapor image shows a tight circular presentation with some outflows to the South. If there is even the slightest hint of rotation I would not be surprised if the NHC calls this a TD in the next 24 hours. I believe they (NHC) too are waiting for better satellite coverage.
If there are no changes, the domes should steer this disturbance due west until about 400 or so miles east of the Windward Islands.
http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/sat-bin/display10.cgi?SIZE=full&PHOT=yes&AREA=global/stitched&PROD=vapor&TYPE=ssmi&NAV=global&DISPLAY=Latest&ARCHIVE=Latest&CGI=global.cgi&CURRENT=20100819.0900.multisat.wv.stitched.Global.x.jpg&MOSAIC_SCALE=15
Latest GFS and NOGAPS:
http://moe.met.fsu.edu/cgi-bin/gfstc2.cgi?time=2010081906&field=Sea+Level+Pressure&hour=Animation
http://moe.met.fsu.edu/cgi-bin/ngptc2.cgi?time=2010081900&field=Sea+Level+Pressure&hour=Animation
Hurricanes are a global warming event.
Anyway, if it were not for Al, I wouldn’t know as much as I do today.
================================
Thanks for confessing that….although you and I would probably agree on the fact that listening to Al is not really a good thing….ever.
Hurricanes are truly NOT a “global warming event.”
They are normal heat release valves from the broiling tropics to the temperate latitudes.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
The latitudinal position of the air circulation systems is not dictated solely by a single phenomenon such as the AMO.
===========================
I never said they were. 🙂
Crap – in the previous Klotzbach thread I predicted an ACE of 130 for the year and the second named hurricane on August 20th.
So much for the second prediction unless Invest 95 can spin up into a hurricane before midnight. The first prediction is looking better though!