No let up on storms for next year
(CNS): The 2010 storm season may have only just finished, but the experts at Colorado State University are already turning their attention to the next season which they say will be just as busy. In its first prediction for the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season the forecasting team anticipates 17 tropical storms, with nine of those strengthening into hurricanes and at least one major hurricane in the Caribbean region. The team said five hurricanes will grow into "major" systems of category 3 or higher the same as 2010. The experts said sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic were still at record warm levels, indicating the region is still in a multi-decade period of high activity for hurricanes.
The forecasters said it seemed unlikely that El Nino would develop in regard to the 2011 season. El Nino is a warming of the tropical Pacific that produces wind patterns that squelch development of tropical storms in the Atlantic.
The early extended-range forecast from the team led by William Gray and Phil Klotzbach also predicted more hurricanes will make landfall in the US next year. There is a 73 percent chance at least one of them will be a “major” storm, with winds of 111 mph (179 kph) or higher, they said.
In 2010 the Atlantic saw 19 tropical storms and 12 hurricanes tying with 1887 and 1995 for the third-highest storm total on record.
Category: Science and Nature
Im so tired of these people predicting doom and gloom from their non-hurricane area. I’m convinced they only say the worst, since on occassion they are right and it is the ‘safest’ prediction. No one will have anything to say if they predict doom and gloom if they are wrong, but they would if it was the other way around. The fact is that hurricanes have been with us for thousands of years and what we need to focus on is the tracking which is more useful and getting better, not fortune tellers.
Now you think that this can in any way be factual? The report is based on speculation and hocus pocus. Over the years the average hurricane count runs around seventeen.