The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expects this year’s Atlantic hurricane season to be “above normal,” the agency said Tuesday. If that happens, it will make 2022 the seventh consecutive year with a season above normal.
Rick Spinrad, the NOAA administrator, told a news conference on Tuesday that scientists had calculated a 65 percent chance of an overtime season, a 25 percent chance of an almost normal season and a 10 percent chance of a lower than normal season.
The season – which officially runs from June 1 to November 30, although storms may develop outside this period – is likely to include 14 to 21 so-called storms, a category that includes all tropical cyclones with the highest winds of at least 39 miles. per hour. They are expected to reach 6 to 10 hurricane strength, which means steady winds of at least 74 miles per hour. And three to six of this subgroup are expected to reach category 3 or higher, which means steady winds of at least 111 miles per hour.
The NOAA’s seasonal forecast is for the overall activity of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean and does not predict how many storms will pass near or over land.
But “it only takes one storm to damage your home, neighborhood and community,” Mr Spinrad said. “Readiness is the key to resilience, and now is the time to prepare for the upcoming hurricane season.”
Several elements informed the forecast, including La Niña, a broad climate model that has been in place since 2020 and affects many aspects of the weather, including drought in the western United States. La Niña is expected to continue throughout the hurricane season, maintaining conditions conducive to hurricane formation.
Another factor is the strong West African monsoon, which is supporting the development of areas of low atmospheric pressure known as East African waves, from which intense storms can form. At the same time, the tropical Atlantic trade winds are weaker than the average, which facilitates the merging of a developing storm without being torn apart by the wind. NOAA is also expecting unusually warm sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic this summer, and storms are gaining momentum as they pass over warm water.
The classification system used by NOAA – which categorizes increasing intensity events such as tropical depressions, tropical storms and category 1 to category 5 hurricanes – is based solely on maximum sustained wind speeds and does not reflect rainfall volume or intensity.
But rainfall and floods can often cause more wind damage, and devastation can extend far beyond the southern coastal regions, which are most commonly affected by hurricanes. In early September, the remnants of Hurricane Ida devastated the New York metropolitan area with more than three inches of rain in an hour, although by this time its winds had fallen well below the force of the hurricane.
In general, many of the models that have led to hurricane seasons above average and other extreme weather conditions are related to climate change.
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“We are seeing such a dramatic change in the type of weather we are facing as a result of climate change,” said Dean Chriswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, on Tuesday, stressing the need for individual preparedness. .
As the season unfolds, forecasters will monitor Loop Current, a warm zone in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Its positioning varies from year to year, and smaller currents known as vortices can separate from the mainstream, resulting in warmer than average water farther north in the Persian Gulf.
This is not a factor in the seasonal forecast, as the effects depend on the geography of individual storms, said Matthew Rosencrans, lead hurricane forecaster at the NOAA Climate Forecasting Center. If the path of the storm does not take it upstream, it does not matter. But storms that cross the circuit or whirlwind can intensify quickly and dangerously, as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita did in 2005 – and the current this year looks a lot like 2005.
“The Loop Current seems to be active this year; we see this push of hot water up into the bay, “said Mr Rosencrans. “If a storm forms and then moves over where the loop current is, it can be an explosive source of energy.
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