Forecasters now expect 70-percent chance of 12 to 17 named storms
In its updated 2016 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook, NOAA calls for a higher likelihood of a near-normal or above-normal season, and decreases the chance of a below-normal season to only 15 percent, from the initial outlook issued in May. The season is still expected to be the most active since 2012.
Forecasters now expect a 70 percent chance of 12 to 17 named storms, of which 5 to 8 are expected to become hurricanes, including 2 to 4 major hurricanes. The initial outlook called for 10-16 named storms, 4 to 8 hurricanes, and 1-4 major hurricanes. The seasonal averages are 12 named storms, 6 hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes.
“We’ve raised the numbers because some conditions now in place are indicative of a more active hurricane season, such as El Niño ending, weaker vertical wind shear and weaker trade winds over the central tropical Atlantic, and a stronger west African monsoon,” said Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “However, less conducive ocean temperature patterns in both the Atlantic and eastern subtropical North Pacific, combined with stronger wind shear and sinking motion in the atmosphere over the Caribbean Sea, are expected to prevent the season from becoming extremely active.”
“Given these competing conditions, La Niña, if it develops, will most likely be weak and have little impact on the hurricane season,” added Bell. NOAA announced today that La Niña is slightly favored to develop during the hurricane season.
To date, there have been five named storms, including two hurricanes (Alex and Earl). Four made landfall: Bonnie (in South Carolina), Colin (in western Florida), Danielle (in eastern Mexico), and Earl (in Belize and Mexico).
As we move into the peak of hurricane season, when hurricanes are most frequent and often at their strongest, NOAA urges coastal residents to make sure they have their hurricane preparedness plans in place and to monitor the latest forecasts. Learn how NOAA forecasts hurricanes.
On the Web:
Atlantic hurricane season outlook update
Atlantic hurricane season outlook (May 27)
james – yes indeed.
St. Thomas USVI has a 1% chance of a Hurricane coming within 50nm each week in August.
That goes to 2% chance in September.
I found a nice greater Caribbean source on Hurricane odds… link below.
https://www.caribeez.com/weather/article/caribbean-hurricane-season
That link took me to the 2015 hurricane forcast.
The internet is like my refrigerator: check the expiry date before consuming.
This link was posted because of the historical statistics contained in the article, not because it was a forecast for this year.
Nice site. Good overview and chances of getting clobbered on any given island. Up to date forecasts, and interesting tourist info.
If you are going down there, this is one to bookmark and keep handy.
For local weather forecasts I expect them to be about 90% correct about the next day’s weather and exactly wrong four days or more out. I would expect something similar for seasonal predictions.
We lived in Florida for four years, every year they predicted we would have a bad hurricane season, every year we were sparred. But living in France we have had one hurricane, although officially called a storm, but with sustained winds of about 90mph, back in January 2009. We lost 8 trees and had no electricity for a week!
Ourfrench
One night in very late November of 2008 I was on a ship transiting the Gulf of Lion from Barcelona to Nice and we were buffeted for 3-4 hours by 70+ knot winds from the north, which I believe the French would call a tramontane. As we neared Nice the Alps were brilliantly white and appeared to crowd the beach in the cold clear sunrise. Quite a contrast from the previous balmy afternoon in Spain. The winter of 2008-2009 must have been a cold one in France.
In addition to just looking at the strengths and number of hurricanes, it seems to me that their durations over their speed ranges should also be a part of a statistical data base. Does anyone know whether or not that is available, and what year it started?
I don’t….but good point
With the “now” technology…and more planes available because of fewer storms
…they are clocking 30 min durations…and classifying and naming them
I forget which year it was…..2-3 years ago….they named four storms that were immediately downgraded as soon as they named them….but they got a name, so they counted
I think it is OK to name a storm as soon as there is a closed circulation with sustained winds at 39 mph because it is easier to refer to a particular storm by name, especially if there are more than one happening at a time. For instance, if TS A poses no threat to my area and TS B is going on at the same time and is a possible threat to my area I would pay attention to TS Beta news and ignore TS Alpha. And if TS C is farther out and may need my attention in a several days or so, I can hold off on concern about that for now. Again, just an easier way to tell them apart when listening to forecasts and updates.
I sorta agree with that…but mostly don’t
When they find 39 in one quadrant for 10 mins…it gets a name
..and even if it’s a nada for the entire rest of the time…it keeps that name
That and “cyclone” gives the impression there’s more going on than there is
“three named storms in the Atlantic”…..and they are all three disorganized blobs with no hope of recovery
Meh. Either we’ll have bad storms or we won’t, just like every other year from time immemorial.
Mother Nature will do what she wants to do; I just hope she does it to someone else besides me.
“Forecasters now expect a 70 percent chance of 12 to 17 named storms, of which 5 to 8 are expected to become hurricanes, including 2 to 4 major hurricanes.”
Is this the approximate equivalent of 90% chance of 12 to 17 named storms and 90% chance of 5 to 8 hurricanes and 90% chance of 2 to 4 major hurricanes?
90% seems quite high to me for each of these. (90/100)^3=73/100
The problem with that kind of description is you could have 12 named storms with 8 becoming hurricanes, 2 making it to major status. Or you could have 17 named storms, 5 becoming hurricanes with 4 making it to major status. Or any combination of those numbers. I still prefer they pick a single number and +/- from there.
Stastically speaking,every climatological measure (given a statistically significant time) can be analysed on a bell-curve, with mean & Standard Deviation (SD).
What this is all about is the incremental shift of each set of data as the years advance.
Each significant shift (2xSD?) is a ‘flag’ for further research (not a Call to Arms!) otherwise it is of little statistical significance, being part of normative variance..
Yogi Berra is credited as saying ” It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” NOAA was kind enough to justify there prediction (really a swag) based on “El Niño ending, weaker vertical wind shear and weaker trade winds over the central tropical Atlantic, and a stronger west African monsoon,” and goes on to say “However, less conducive ocean temperature patterns in both the Atlantic and eastern subtropical North Pacific, combined with stronger wind shear and sinking motion in the atmosphere over the Caribbean Sea, are expected to prevent the season from becoming extremely active.”
I know NOAA is a favorite whipping boy for many; I might add, with good reason. Can someone please tell me whether the criticism of this forecast is based on conditions NOAA cites to justify their prediction (El Niño, etc.) or is the criticism based on past egregious behavior by NOAA? What basis for predicting 2016 hurricanes would be better than the ones NOAA selected?
It is now mid-August and ZERO hurricane/tropical storm anything on the Atlantic side of the globe. Nothing!!!
Lets remember that the worst season for the east coast, 1954 had an ace of 112 and the C storm Carol, hit on Aug 31. Our worry is not total ace in the middle of nowhere but the in close activity. The developing major cool regime in the central US means higher pressure there which enhances the storm threats in the western atlantic and gulf as it forced enhanced convergence in these areas. I appreciate people wish to look to Africa but when you look at years like 1954, you can see the big 3 did not gain storm intensity till well west, away from Africa
The danger in spiking the ball on the non season is that it takes a couple of slow moving storms over the well above normal waters, lets say a couple of Joaquin type rapid feedbacks and suddenly you are in very different territory. The definition of an active season is subjective. If it hits you , its an active season. And you can imagine given the nonsense of AGW hysteria, that a 1954 season occurring now would rely on the fact people dont know about it, to push the AGW issue. My only caution is to understand this kind of SST in close to the US can turn this season in a period of a few weeks to one that is grabbing headlines. Peace
The aforementioned SST http://models.weatherbell.com/sst/natl_cdas1_anom.png
And it still remains a gamble
Thank you!
Yes, think back to Andrew. Almost falling apart on Aug 20 it quickly turned into a Cat 5 only 3 days later as it came into the very warm waters of the Bahamas. This is an excellent example of why you watch EVERYTHING as it approaches your area.
Expressed in terms of confidence limits, these numbers are 14.5 +/- 17%, 6.5 +/- 23%, and 3.0 +/- 33%.
This has all the precision of a sawed-off shotgun in the hands of a blind man.
Well of course NOAA is going to say this year’s hurricane season is going to be “worse than we thought”….
When they’re wrong, it’s forgotten, and they still get the “worse than we thought” headline at the start of the season, and if NOAA is wrong, there is ZERO accountability, and almost no MSM journalist will point out NOAA’s absolutely LOUSY record of accurately predicting ANY weather event over 10 days in the future..
Not a bad job if you can get it…
Here in the UK the Daily Mail are reporting that “Hurricane Sandy” was the deadliest hurricane to hit the US since Katrina, correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t Sandy only classified as a super tropical storm when she hit the north east coast not a hurricane.
Correct…
“Superstorm Sandy” :-0, so-named because it was not even a hurricane at landfall they had to name it something that sounded even scarier.
The only reason it’s remembered at all is that it hit a populated area and caused a lot of damage.
If it had hit the Florida everglades where nobody lives, nobody would even remember it.
Sandy was a hurricane when it was in the Caribbean. As it moved north it changed into a post tropical storm. Still, it was a monster with lots energy as it hit New Jersey.
Well I’ve had enough of the “dire” weather talks/predictions haven’t you?
In the last month, our forcasters have called for 3 “major/severe/get inside now!” Storms that amounted to some spectacularly unremarkable drizzle of rain.
Severe thunderstorm watch in effect is so overused that even here in WI, where.weather is watched closer than anyother place I’ve lived, the people are becoming jaded. Which is saying something. Now big stuff in the winter…yea they tend to get it right, but that is Winter and it doesn’t feed the CAGW machine like warmer temps and thunderstorms does.
So you tell me, how can the same equipment that can forecast a blizzard and pretty accurately I might add, get it so wrong on a typical thunderstorm? The answer? Global warming of course! The public is more apt to believe in global warming when they aren’t shovelling 12″of snow at 30 below zero F.
I live in Houma, LA. My house is about 5 houses away from the marsh that runs on for 20 miles to the Gulf. Hurricanes are important to me and mine. We are somewhat amazed at how wrong Al Gore was with that “STORMS WILL BE STRONGER AND MORE FREQUENT” prognostication. Of course he was wrong on so many other levels as well. The fear of increased storm activity reduced land values and forced local government and State Government to ad debt and taxes to pay for it to help “SAVE” us from the future of increased storms. We live in a “STATE OF FEAR”… oh!, BTW read the book by Crichton…very apropos.
It;s reel hard to turn off or rationally rationalize those plugged parameters!
It’s …