What Happened to Predictions of a Historic Hurricane Season?

Monday, September 09, 2024

Washington Post looks at why the predicted extremely busy hurricane season has turned into the longest stretch with in more than half century without a late-summer hurricane forming.

Posted by qcp at 06:33 PM | 20 COMMENTS | permalink

Comments

It has been pretty quiet. TS Francine just formed in the Gulf.

#1 | Posted by REDIAL at 2024-09-09 11:48 AM

Unusually mild Atlantic hurricane season likely to ramp up (August 26, 2024)
www.axios.com

... 2024 was forecast to be one of the busiest Atlantic hurricane seasons on record. Yet Atlantic storm activity is in a near-historic pause.

Why it matters: The reduced activity highlights the challenge of long-term forecasting, even as short-term forecasts indicate things will soon kick back up.

Between the lines: The causes of the pause come down to a few big factors.

- - - The unusually stable atmosphere over the tropical Atlantic, which discourages the air from rising, cooling and condensing into clouds and forming organized storms.

- - - In addition, the region where the trade winds meet, known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone, has been displaced well to the north of its typical position across Africa.

- - - This has caused seedlings for tropical storms and hurricanes to emerge off the west coast of Africa near northern Mauritania and Western Sahara rather than the more typical location of Senegal. These clusters of thunderstorms quickly cross over cold waters and dissipate.

- - - The unusually active African monsoon has also bolstered easterly winds at mid-to-upper levels of the atmosphere across large parts of the tropical Atlantic. This causes wind shear that tears incipient storms to pieces.

Yes, but: The quiet in the Atlantic Ocean basin, which in an active season would be giving rise to multiple storms and hurricanes at this time of year, appears to be on the verge of ending. ...

By the numbers: This season is running above average in most measures of storm activity, having had three hurricanes, including one major hurricane already.

- - - This season is also ahead of the long-term average when it comes to a key measure of the strength and duration of Atlantic storms.

- - - However, Klotzbach says if the quiet period were to extend longer than expected, 2024 could fall below average for a time. ...

These clusters of thunderstorms quickly cross over cold waters and dissipate.

There were about 10 of those last week alone.

I'm happy it's been a week hurricane season.

Thank the Gawds we finally defeated climate change!

First we defeated racism and now climate change? We are on a roll man!

Whew! Who knew that doing nothing or even aggravating the problems would work so well!

This has always been my biggest criticism of the climate change debate... The forecasts of what it's impact will be, and the subsequent actions taken.

The forecasts of the impacts rarely are play out as anticipated, but yet we continue to push for expensive actions to combat the supposed outcomes of these forecasts.

We really need to focus on technologies aid in adjusting to the climate as it changes, and sequestration technologies to lower the carbon outputs and slow the rate of change to give time for said technologies to come to realization.

@#6 ... This has always been my biggest criticism of the climate change debate... The forecasts of what it's impact will be, and the subsequent actions taken.

The forecasts of the impacts rarely are play out as anticipated ...

This was a long-term weather forecast, one that was made with an 85% probability of being correct.

Weather is not climate.

I have a degree in meteorology, I'm quite aware of what this is and how it works. It's a microcosm of the larger point I was making.

@#8 ... I'm quite aware of what this is and how it works. ...

Good.

Then you should know the difference between weather and climate.

And you should know the difference between an analog and direct equivalence.

There are daily forecasts, not likely to drive a government policy.

Then there are longer term seasonal outlooks like this... it's conceivable that some coastal town could have enacted an in reaction to this forecast. Probably didn't happen but could have.

Then there are the climatologists outlooks that we are basing policy on...

See the analogy We are just as likely to get the details wrong if not more so on longer outlooks than this seasonal outlook, yet we are still enacting policies because we somehow think the climatologists are going to be right about the details of the impact of it.

Try to get over your programming that says if anything that isn't in glowing support of anything climate change, and isn't willing to offer to burn cash in any and all efforts "to at least we are doing something" and try to think just a little bit.

Instead we just got record hot temperatures.

Climate change must be fake!

This has always been my biggest criticism of the climate change debate... The forecasts of what it's impact will be, and the subsequent actions taken.

The forecasts of the impacts rarely are play out as anticipated, but yet we continue to push for expensive actions to combat the supposed outcomes of these forecasts.

#6 | Posted by kwrx25

Plenty of consequences were predicted. Big oil media just cherry picks the outliers.

We DID break heat records all over the place this year.
Tropical diseases ARE moving north, as scientists predicted.
Coral reef IS dying, as predicted.
6th mass extinction continues unabated, as predicted.

@#10 ... See the analogy We are just as likely to get the details wrong if not more so on longer outlooks than this seasonal outlook ...

I see an analogy you are trying to make ...

The devil is in the details, as the saying goes.

So, the weather forecast was an 85% probability for an active hurricane season. Since we are just now approaching what is typically peak season, I'd say it is too soon to tell if the prediction was good or not. I will note the June hurricane, Beryl, that we had was not typical.

Category 5 Hurricane Beryl makes explosive start to 2024 Atlantic season
www.climate.gov

... Hurricane Beryl, the first hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, rapidly strengthened to a Category 5 storm unusually early in the year. This explosive strengthening was fueled in part by exceptionally warm ocean temperatures. That heat was one of the factors behind NOAA's prediction in May of an 85% chance that the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season would be above normal.

Beryl first formed as a tropical depression on June 28, 2024, with winds of 35 mph; within the first 24 hours, the storm rapidly intensified into a hurricane with winds of 75 mph. This was the farthest east that a hurricane has formed in the month of June. In the following 24 hours, Beryl underwent another instance of rapid intensification becoming an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane. At that point Beryl was the first Category 4 hurricane to form in the month of June. The previous record was Dennis when it became a Category 4 hurricane on July 8, 2005. Rapid intensification has become more common in recent years and is one aspect of tropical cyclone development that is expected to increase globally due to human caused climate change. ...