Prepare
for the worst, and hope for the best—That’s
the motto as the Atlantic hurricane season comes to the Eastern Seaboard in
less than two months.
Forecasters
are predicting it could be among
the most active ever.
And
that could mean disruption in summer travel plans in the form of delays and
cancelations, not to mention an impact on housing rentals and the possible
closing of some beaches.
The
season runs from June 1 to November 30.
Colorado State University (CSU) hurricane
researchers have released their initial outlook for the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season, and it could be an extremely
active year thanks to La Nina. And if you don’t think
it can affect travel, just think back to two years ago when airlines had to
delay or cancel thousands of flights.
"The
Atlantic is still at record warm temperatures, providing more fuel for
storms," Dr. Phil Klotzbach, a senior research
scientist at CSU, said. "The El Nino is weakening, likely to transition to a La Nina.
That’s colder water in the eastern and central tropical Pacific, typically in
the more hurricane-favorable upper-level wind patterns in the Atlantic."
Translation: it could be a rough summer.
Almost 2 Dozen Named Storms Predicted
The team is calling for 23 named storms,
with 11 that are expected to become hurricanes and five that could reach major
hurricane status. This is the highest number of named storms that Colorado
State researchers have ever issued.
The CSU team expects warm water temperature
anomalies to continue in large parts of the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of
Mexico, an essential ingredient for tropical cyclone formation.
"When waters in the eastern and
central tropical and subtropical Atlantic are much warmer than normal in
the spring, it tends to force a weaker subtropical
high and associated weaker winds blowing across the tropical Atlantic,"
CSU researchers noted. "These conditions will likely lead to a
continuation of well above-average water temperatures in the tropical Atlantic
for the peak of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. A very warm Atlantic favors
an above-average season, since a hurricane’s fuel source is warm ocean water."
Landfall probabilities predictions among
the named storms were also higher than during an average season.
"We’re still two months from the start of the season and about four months before it really ramps up.
So, there still are things that could potentially change," Klotzbach said.
"In 2022, we had no storms in August, but the season ended up with eight hurricanes. It got
really busy late. Some of that may have been due to the subtropical Atlantic
being a bit cooler, so we had a lot of like mid-latitude fronts and a lot of
dry air that came in and really squashed stuff in August."
For example, Hurricane Ian, which
devastated Southwest Florida, hit landfall at the end of September of 2022.
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