The Atlantic Hurricane season starts today, June 1st, 2013.
While NOAA predicts an active Atlantic Hurricane Season, it is useful to note this other milestone of hurricane drought, a duration not seen since 1900.
As of today, it has been 2777 days or 7.6 years since the US has been hit by a Cat 3 or greater hurricane. The last such hurricane was Wilma on October 24th, 2005. Each day forward will be a new record in this drought period.
Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. summarizes:
The graph above provides an update to data on the remarkable ongoing US “intense hurricane drought.” When the Atlantic hurricane season starts next June 1, it will have been 2,777 days since the last time an intense (that is a Category 3, 4 or 5) hurricane made landfall along the US coast (Wilma in 2005). Such a prolonged period without an intense hurricane landfall has not been observed since 1900.
Dr. Pielke also has some other thoughts related to hurricane Sandy
We live in interesting times.
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Without a doubt, this is an EXTREME length of time !!. 😉
ala Phil Jones — We’ll just have to redefine what Cat [3,4,5] hurricanes are!
pokerguy says: June 2, 2013 at 4:15 am
“REPLY: Who’s crowing? Its a statement of fact.- Anthony”
“…. If it were my blog I’d be putting up several posts with all the current predictions for an active hurricane season with explanations as to why this is likely so….”
Well, this concept baffles the hell outta me.
Why on earth does anyone need to be out-predicting official forecasters and the alarmists?
We have been fed a load of tripe re worsening weather, and more extreme weather, and have been treated like fools by pronouncements that every weather event is “…proof of global warming, oops sorry climate change…” when it is soon revealed by a few minutes searching that none of them can be regarded as unusual in any way.
So what can possibly be gained by trying to predict the outcome of the upcoming season? It may be right at the bottom of the range, which as a single event, would be meaningless. It may be right off the top of the scale, which, as a single event would also be meaningless . If it goes off either the top or bottom of the scale every four or five years in the next two decades, it may be time to start drawing some conclusions.
And, undoubtedly most are going to land somewhere in the middle.
I’d be pleased if someone could explain to me what pokerguy is talking about.
In August 1983 I was at Ft Irwin, CA for 30 days of desert training. Over a 7 day period they got more rain than the previous 10 years combined. Training had to be suspended several times, and we moved all our vehicles and personnell to higher ground. I don’t remember what the cause was.
Very well said. To Simon, when are you gonna realize you have been played like a fiddle by the catastrophicists? Now go change your diapers.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
June 2, 2013 at 3:32 am
Simon says on June 2, 2013 at 1:48 am:
“But the eye-opener is Named Storms, up 0.211 per year. This is well within the likewise-reported observations that they’re naming storms that only briefly hit the tropical storm threshold.”
Great report. The Alarmists now count more storms from the same data.
pokerguy says:
June 1, 2013 at 6:10 pm
“Couldn’t agree more. I think these hurricane drought posts are short-sighted. I keep saying essentially the same thing. We saw what they did with “superstorm” Sandy last year. Crowing about a hurricane drought is not smart since it has to end, likely this year.”
You are not evaluating the fact of the “drought” in scientific terms. It clearly falsifies everything Alarmists had written about hurricanes and increasing CO2. Once falsified is forever falsified. Writing about the drought points to the unscientific nature of Alarmist work. A recovery from the drought does nothing to remove the falsification of Alarmist work. Once falsified is forever falsified.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) [June 2, 2013 at 3:32 am] says:
“Got that? Before 1966 the numbers are crap. As has been mentioned MANY times before, it only looks like there’s a dramatic increase in tropical storms and hurricanes starting with the 2nd half of the 20th century, because before there was normally no one to see them. Before satellites there were lots of “fish storms” that never made landfall that were never recorded because no one saw them.”
Also, consider technological advances. For a long time after 1966, the satellite images were more like hand assembled mosaics on photographic paper and less like streaming video.
OT
If you were in Canada or the northern USA states you may have seen unusually strong lilac aurora instead of more common greenish one. It looks as Earth was swept by sharp transition between North and South IMF polarity
IMF polarity
is Dr.S around ?
Terming long-term absence of Cat-3 to Cat-5 hurricanes a “drought” is a thoughtless solecism. In English, the word should be “dearth,” not “drought.”
See – owe to Rich said in part June 2, 2013 at 4:54 am:
“I was very surprised to see Roger Pielke say at his blog that Sandy
was of hurricane strength at landfall. As noted on the WUWT thread
at the time, I looked very carefully for evidence in National Weather
Service measurements that anywhere on land saw sustained winds of
74mph. I can’t remember what the highest was, but it was something
like 55mph. No-one refuted my analysis and pointed to proper evidence
of hurricane strength.”
When Sandy made landfall, the storm’s strongest sustained winds were
reported by the NHC to be 80 MPH.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2012/al18/al182012.update.10300002.shtml?
In the 1st advisory after landfall, the strongest sustained winds were reported
to be 75 MPH, east of the center, and over water.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2012/al18/al182012.public.031.shtml?
Link to a page with links to archived NHC Sandy advisories and other
NHC products:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2012/SANDY.shtml?
Ah, so you are saying that one doesn’t need hurricane force winds on land at landfall to say that a hurricane (or post-tropical hurricane force storm) hit? Has such a definition always been the case, or is it another example of “adjustments”? And I’m afraid I don’t trust the NHC estimates from radar. The trouble with becoming an alarmist outfit is that you get tarred with a brush. Observations on land or at weather buoys at sea are the only things I would trust, and you haven’t given me any data from those.
I seem to remember Willis Eschenbach complaining about the same thing with Tropical Storm Irene.
Rich.
I commented earlier when See – owe to Rich said on June 2, 2013 at 4:54 am:
“I was very surprised to see Roger Pielke say at his blog that Sandy was of hurricane strength at landfall. As noted on the WUWT thread at the time, I looked very carefully for evidence in National Weather Service measurements that anywhere on land saw sustained winds of 74mph. I can’t remember what the highest was, but it was something like 55mph. No-one refuted my analysis and pointed to proper evidence of hurricane strength.”
Since then, I found this:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL182012_Sandy.pdf
Towards the bottom of page 5, I see mention of a 65 (75 MPH) knot sustained wind measured at Gull Island, near Long island. (Although at 18 meters above surface, and the standard elevation for wind measurement is 10 meters above the surface.) Also mentioned is a 53 knot sustained wind measured 2.25 meters above the surface near Long Beach NJ. This extrapolates to 68 knots (78 MPH) at 10 meters.
Figure 14 on page 139 shows maximum sustained winds in knots 24 meters or less above the surface. Multiply by 1.15 to convert these to MPH. It appears to me that sustained (1-minute-average) winds 64 knots or more barely occurred 10 meters above the surface in only a few spotty areas. However, if the storm is a tropical cyclone, and the National Hurricane Center determines that sustained winds 74 MPH or more occurred 10 meters above the surface – even if measured indirectly or extrapolated from available measurements at other elevations – then the storm is officially a hurricane.
Donald L. Klipstein says:
June 2, 2013 at 12:41 pm
These are not the figures that were on the internet immediately before and after landfall.
Donald – I have no doubt that the storm was “officially a hurricane”. My doubt is that it was actually a hurricane.
Rich.
See-Owe 2 Rich is correct. As the “Sandy” storm came ashore, I clicked onto the exact buoy data reports. Where I checked. on those buoys both north and south of Cape May, I could not find buoy data noting winds at or above 75mph. I believe I saw wind as high as 55MPH.
The technical definition for hurricane status is not what is estimated by a satellite, or by an airplane flying near, or in the hurricane. It is not by a satellite or weather plane detecting winds way high up that are 75 mph. That is ridiculous. There is almost always a wind at 75mph plus high in the atmosphere.
The technical defn for a hurricane is the wind speed at 20 meters. The weather buoys directly measure 10M, and the corresponding wind speed at 20M is estimated by a known, recognized, formula published in a scholarly article, I seem to recall, or some recognized technical specification pulbication.
I commented about this on WUWT soon after landfall. I noted my method for finding the buoy data.
As far as I know, there are three places where the weather service could get the original / source / raw data upon which to make this judgment. First is the exact buoy data I was looking at. The second is to take the buoy data and manipulate it somehow – possibly a different 10M to 20M formula that the official formula. The third is to ignore the buoy data and depend upon what a satellite read somewhere in the storm other than 20M, or an airplane determined at some elevation other than 20M.
Any method other than the recognized method, ought to add an asterisk to the “hurricane.”
I looked all of this up for myself based on various comments at WUWT and other places. I was determined
This is really good for sailors, and very bad for those who believe in the bermuda triangle.
Theo Goodwin, You’re exactly right. Everytime the data doesn’t conform to the myth, the “scientists” go about formulating a new complicated index for tracking. The number of large tornadoes has been decreasing since the seventies, so they developed a new tornado index, which relies on many assumptions that make it increase over the years. Since we couldn’t track the number of small tornadoes as well in the past, the assumptions ensure the number of small tornadoes increased over time (making up for the fact that the large ones decreased). So now they have another nice little index that confirms their myth.
How many Cat 3+ US landfall storms in 2013 would it take for us to end the drought and revert to trend?
tmlutas says:
June 3, 2013 at 7:25 pm
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Until the infrastructure is build to divert flood waters, especially flash ones, to re-charge aquifers, drought will continue. And as long as some are getting rich via other’s misery change will be slow to manifest, regardless.