Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Outlook for the remainder of hurricane season

From Jeff Masters' Wunderblog:

...Outlook for the remainder of hurricane season
Atlantic tropical cyclone activity finishes its peak phase in mid-October, and takes a major downturn during the final half of October (Figure 1). Since the current active hurricane period began in 1995, the last half of October through the end of hurricane season has given birth to an average of 1.9 named storms, 0.8 hurricanes, and 0.3 intense hurricanes. These numbers are about double the long-term climatological averages for the past 100 years. So, we're probably not done with the season yet, since this is not an El Nino year--El Nino years typically bring higher wind shear to the Atlantic, and an early end to hurricane season.

Climatology of major hurricanes
Let's examine the possibilities of getting a major hurricane this year, since those are the storms we care most about. Since 1960, there have been ten hurricanes that have existed as major Category 3 or higher storms after October 15....MORE