Despite Prediction 2022 Atlantic Hurricane Season Fizzles Out Below “Normal”
Guest essay by Larry Hamlin
In late May and again in early August 2022 NOAA predicted that the year 2022 Atlantic Hurricane Season (between June to end November calendar period) would be an “above normal” season with 14-21 named storms, between 6-10 hurricanes including 3-6 major hurricanes (Category 3,4 and 5) as shown in NOAA’s diagram below.
Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science/Tropical Meteorology Project has compiled the year 2022 tropical storm data (shown below) establishing that compared to its 30 year North Atlantic data records covering the Climatological period 1991-2020 the year 2022 hurricane season was below average in Named Storms, Named Storm Days, Hurricane Days, Major Hurricanes, Major Hurricane Days and Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE).
The NOAA prediction was far off base regarding major hurricanes with only 2 occurring during the season versus the 3-6 predicted range and only a total of 14 storms which was at the very lowest end of their predicted 14-21 range.
The 2022 Atlantic Hurricane season ended with only 78% of the average ACE recorded compared to its 30-year climatology average ACE during the 1991-2020 period. The 2022 ACE level is 60% lower than occurred during the six-year period inclusive of 2016 through 2021 despite climate alarmism hyped propaganda the the world is experiencing a “climate emergency.”
The Colorado State University graph below shows the year 2022 Atlantic Hurricane season below average ACE outcome compared to 30-year climate average period between 1991-2020.
The year 2022 Atlantic Hurricane data for each of the 14 named storms is shown below with the names, specific dates of occurrence, maximum wind speed and total storm ACE provided.
Note that major hurricane Ian’s maximum wind speed is identified as being 135 kts.
The Colorado State University report identifies the following information regarding its assessment of maximum wind speed. “Track history for each storm is created from the operational warnings that are issued every six hours by NHC, CPHC , and JTWC . The positions and intensities are best estimates of those quantities when the warning is issued. THESE ARE NOT BEST TRACKS – having not been reanalyzed in any systematic manner.”
The Best Track history for major hurricane Ian is provided below showing the 135 kts maximum wind speed.
As always occurs each Atlantic Hurricane season the climate alarmist propaganda media continue to misrepresent Atlantic Hurricane data in ways that falsely portray the apparent strength and frequency of hurricanes to push their climate alarmist agenda as illustrated by recent (with cherry-picked hurricane history and hurricane category as well as ignoring hurricane days and hurricane ACE data) efforts by the New York Times as shown below.
Colorado State University data for the long term North Atlantic history providing complete records of major hurricanes, major hurricane days and total ACE are shown below.
The data shows that alarmist claims of increasing climate driven trends for recent major hurricanes in the North Atlantic are unsupported by actual data with varying hurricane behavior present throughout the century. This outcome is particularly noteworthy since Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) did not begin operating until the mid 1970s which significantly increased scientists’ ability to detect and monitor global tropical storms and hurricanes.
Additional scientific assessments of ACE data shown below clearly establish that there are no recent climate change driven increases in tropical storms, hurricanes or major hurricanes with these outcomes demonstrating natural climate behavior is driving these outcome patterns.
The data presented here is always concealed by politically contrived climate alarmist propagandists as demonstrated by the New York Times hurricane propaganda chart presented earlier.
NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) concludes the following regarding climate change and hurricanes.
“In summary, it is premature to conclude with high confidence that increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations from human activities have had a detectable impact on Atlantic basin hurricane activity, although increasing greenhouse gases are strongly linked to global warming… Human activities may have already caused other changes in tropical cyclone activity that are not yet detectable due to the small magnitude of these changes compared to estimated natural variability, or due to observational limitations.”
Of course, the New York Times and other climate alarmists will continue to push the flawed and scientifically unsupported Democrat politics of climate alarmism.
Living in the hurricane belt, there are no complaints from me. Hurricanes are generally a local storm. You occasionally get the monsters but the actual width of high winds typically is not that much and if you are 20 miles outside that high wind field, it can just be a breezy wet day. Unfortunately if you are inside the wind field your roof may be in the next town, It also matters which side of the eye you are on. The other thing generally not mentioned are the tornadoes that spin up away from the eye in the rain bands. These can cause as much or more damage if it hits your house than being in the eye.
While the current La Nina conditions were supposed to produce more hurricanes, they did not. That is because few are looking at the PDO — Pacific Decadal Oscillation — which is a much larger cooling mechanism and has been cooling in the short term and long term. The PDO (among other forcing agents) has been aiding the intrusion of more cold air over the U.S. and the North Atlantic. While the Atlantic (AMO) is still relatively warm, the PDO’s cool air intrusions have hampered hurricane development. TWC (and media) will not talk about the PDO, AMO, QBO, etc beacause then they’d have to acknowledge that the sun is a climate driver.
No, i thought La Nina produces more sheering winds in the atlantic that serve to break up storms before they grow?
Yes and No. El Nino helps Northeast Pacific storms and La Nina helps North Atlantic storms … https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/impacts-el-ni%C3%B1o-and-la-ni%C3%B1a-hurricane-season A strong and cold PDO cancels the favorable hurricane formation environment in the Atlantic. Notice that the western U.S. is becoming cooler and snowier. When the AMO begins its complimentary cold phase, then the entire U.S. will see cooler and snowier weather — just like it did in the 70s when it snowed in Miami in 1977.
Of course, as we all know, the hurricane data in the graphs above are bought and paid for by Big Oil and other fossil fuel interests. So, they can’t really be true, can they?
When you are driven by your hatred for fossil fuels and the companies that produce them, you begin denying the reality around you. And they call the skeptics deniers.
NOAA cannot even predict this years hurricane season at its beginning, yet thinks it can predict more complicated climate 80 years in the future. FAIL.
It cannot predict it even halfway thru, they updated and doubled down in august.
Good catch.
Who funds Dr. Maue?
Dr. Maue is a chief meteorologist at NOAA. So, he is a federal govt employee. Who did you think he is funded by?
I’m sure he thinks Maue must be funded by the Koch’s as he isn’t retardedly insane
I believe Dr. Maue was fired from NOAA, some time ago. He was appointed to NOAA by President Trump but, that didn’t last long.
SMC:
Could you post a link? I did some searching and cannot find a source saying that he was fired after being appointed to his position. Some of the sources say his predecessor was fired.
White House fires 2 climate denialists – E&E News (eenews.net)
Here is another one.
Officials ousted from White House after papers casting doubt on climate science | The Hill
His LinkedIn page:
Ryan M. – Meteorologist – Weather Enterprise | LinkedIn
Thanks for the links SMC.
How then is Dr. Maue still updating the hurricane data? Does he still work at NOAA? Is it that he is just not Chief Meteorologist anymore?
I think (pure speculation on my part) he is doing it on his own. It is his field of expertise, after all.
Here is the link: Global Tropical Cyclone Activity | Ryan Maue (climatlas.com)
Someone with the experience and knowledge of Dr. Maue will always find a job somewhere. He worked for weatherbell for a time.
Apparently, the White House fires anyone who questions the party line.
Doesn’t matter. His ACE analysis is nearly identical to that from CSU.
I saw what you did there.
“”Who funds Dr. Maue?””
Now try talking about the data which is just a tad embarrassing for government funded NOAA
I bet you fund them….
Why not deal with the arguments and data presented?
Try this:
https://weathermodels.com/
Just a matter of a year or so and the headlines will be “More Hurricanes than average due to Climate Change”….
“Human activities may have already caused other changes in tropical cyclone activity that are not yet detectable due to the small magnitude of these changes compared to estimated natural variability, or due to observational limitations.””
***************
Seriously? I’m not a scientist, but I’m getting a sense that the cart is being put before the horse here.
How can you attribute something (possibly) to human activities when it hasn’t been detected yet? Is that science or religious faith? They have the holy faith, now they are looking for evidence to support the faith.
It is called bullcrap to say it indelicately, as they say dumb words to prop up a nonsense narrative.
It is all about money and power to make these stupid statements.
@CD in Wisconsin…. I call your attention to the word “may” in the quote… It means (IMO) that they are not sure…
I understand what you are saying Gibert.
I am simply wondering if it is even appropriate in science to suggest a possible attribution to something that has not been detected yet, as they admit to. It just seems like jumping the gun to me.
We have not seen any aliens but they may use warp drives based on dilithium crystals and come from Antares7.
“May”, without evidence, without ability to measure, and without any logical case laid out at all, I’d say it means (IMO) that they are pandering to their leftist overlords.
It is one large, large indication of their lack of training in handling measurements of physical data. The term you are looking for is Measurement Uncertainty Interval (as I call it). You can not ASSUME any result within the MUI is known, period. Any value within the MUI can be the true one, and I do mean any value. It is what you don’t know and can never know. Ultimately it is what statistics are all about, i.e. probability distributions.
And I still disagree that uncertainty has a probability distribution. There is one value that is the true value and all the others are not. The true value has a probability of 1 and all the others have a probability of zero. The issue is knowing which value has the probability of 1 – it is unknown and unknowable. It’s like rolling a ten sided dice with a blindfold on. You know *one* value is going to come up but you’ll have no idea what that value is – it is unknown and unknowable. But it will be in the interval of 1 to 10.
First let’s eliminate storms 1,2,3 and 9 (Alex, Bonnie, Colin and Hermine) as the duration and intensity are too little to be of consequence. So that leaves us 10 real storms, a quiet season.
However, as I said at the beginning of the season, it only takes one. As those of us affected by Ian know, true dat.
It would be safer if NOAA would give pronouns too because trans storms can pack something you didn’t expect.
I actually think that is the best way to compare modern hurricane records with the past, pre-satellite records. Instead of “estimating” how many storms might have been missed previously, simply scratch from the post-satellite records the storms which likely would not have been detected using the methods of the past. Ditto for the widespread use of aircraft. Just dumb everything down to what would have been seen when our abilities to detect, observe and record these storms was at its least capable.
Then recent storm counts will suddenly not look “special” at all.
The same needs to be done for wind speeds, since I think the satellite era wind speeds are taken at higher altitudes than the ground based observations of the past, thereby inflating them, but that will be a bit more complicated.
The best metric is hurricanes making landfall since we noticed most of those since the beginning of the 20th century. And those are not increasing over the 120 years we have reliable data.
I want to hear the theory behind how a 102 ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration since 1900 steers hurricanes toward land more often.
Best I can tell, absolutely nobody got it right. Everyone predicted a more active season than we had in the Atlantic.
i didn’t?
🙂
Instead of a predictive study, I will perform an attribution study.
The NOAA hurricane forecast was for 4.5 major hurricanes based on the status of multiple global oscillators.
After Fiona, Ian also became a major hurricane. Nearly every single story in the mainstream media attributed Ian’s status to “climate change” – since 2022 had the highest atmospheric CO2 content in recorded human history.
Therefore, according to “attribution science”, there was one natural major hurricane, and one EXTRA CAGW major hurricane!
However, my “attribution model” looks at the entire system. According to NOAA, we should have had 4.5 major hurricanes. Instead, the elevated atmospheric CO2 level suppressed 3.5 natural major hurricanes!
If elevated CO2 levels “caused” one major hurricane, but suppressed 3.5 other major hurricanes, then the social cost of carbon is negative 2.5 major hurricanes.
Clearly, the green power subsidies should be transferred to the fossil fuel suppliers to provide for a safer future!
Great. Next year, and every year after that, I’m predicting an “average” year. Pay me.
Well, except for those of us that have compared their predictions in the past to what actually happened – and noticed the negative correlation between the two.
You can always trust a fortune teller that is consistently wrong. (Doesn’t apply only to climate “scientists” by the way. I remember well the economic prognosticators in the early 2000s saying that everything had changed, and we’d never see another recession.)
I think I’ve figured just what “Climate Change” actually means.
Nature keeps changing the climate so their projections are seldom right.
Actually, their projections are always right. Whatever the narrative requires, they will create a projection to match.
(Their version of “right” may differ from what actual scientists consider correct.)
As noted before, the models only got it 10% right (below normal year, flipping a coin more accurate), but after Ian they proclaimed it had 10% more rain than it would have without our contribution.
an unknowable thing, completely made up.
If they didn’t have lies they wouldn’t have anything
“If they didn’t have lies they wouldn’t have anything”
That’s right.
“…climate alarmists will continue to push the flawed and scientifically unsupported Democrat politics of climate alarmism….”
_________________________________
It’s not just Democrats in the United States. With the exception of Russia, China and India, climate alarmism is the world-wide religion of the left-wing political class. And there are way too many “go along to get along” politicians on the right who need to come to their senses.
Steve,
It has been said that the DemoKKKrats are the Crooked or Criminal Party, and that the Repubicans are the Stupid Party!
Recent evidence of widespread voter fraud and collusion with Big Tech to violate the Constitution seem to validate the former; the treatment of the new crop of feisty, young conservative candidates by the Repubican leadership definitely proves the latter!
The propensity of Repubs to stand idly by while our military, schools and very society are destroyed by Marxism imposed from within is truly infuriating! Burying one’s head in the sand seems to be very expensive in the long run!
Friday morning I heard a NOAA statement claiming that this season was active and their prediction was spot on. The gaslighting is at an all time high.
Furthermore, Nicole wasn’t even a tropical storm, it was an extratropical storm that they decided to name and call a hurricane anyways. Time for a Great Reset of the entire government.
“…Climate alarmists will continue to push the flawed and scientifically unsupported Democrat politics of climate alarmism.”
Shouldn’t that be “Marxists policies?” After all, Climatastrophe is a major sect of the religion of “Critical” Marxism! That’s the imposition of Lysenkoistic logic into all aspects of our culture like the arts, education and, where ever possible, the sciences!
The articles statement that the 2022 Atlantic Hurricane season was 60% below the six year average of 2016 – 2021 should have said the 2022 season is only 60% of the six year average for 2016-2021.
“below normal”? Climate cooling… warming… change!
Of course a more active than normal hurricane season was predicted. Otherwise it’s an admission that everything isn’t monotonously worse every year due to CO2. Luckily nobody in the sycophant leftist media ever questions this or reviews the accuracy of their predictions.
“Despite”? Or “Because”?
From the article: “In late May and again in early August 2022 NOAA predicted that the year 2022 Atlantic Hurricane Season (between June to end November calendar period) would be an “above normal” season”
When was the last time NOAA predicted a below normal hurricane season?
I don’t recall that they have ever predicted a below normal season. Did I miss something?
I think I see the problem now. The Master Control Knob is disconnected.
It’s worse than it appears. With the continuing improvement in detection and changes in methods, seasons have more reported activity even without any changes in actual activity. The only real long term records are for hurricane strength at landfall. These records go back 120 years and reveal that hurricane strength by decade varies on a long cycle, and that the last few decades have been weaker than previous cycles.
This presents a dilemma for alarmists. They could point out a reduced temperature difference between the equator and poles means fewer storms, so the data is evidence of global warming; but then people might realize that warming is beneficial instead of catastrophic.
“This presents a dilemma for alarmists. They could point out a reduced temperature difference between the equator and poles means fewer storms, so the data is evidence of global warming; but then people might realize that warming is beneficial instead of catastrophic.”
Good point.
The table with the seasonal forecasts from CSU, NOAA, and TSR with verification against observations has been updated to include the 2022 season.
https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/SeasonalVerification.html