Saturday, November 18, 2006

I didn't think I'd be right this quick

Hurricane Season Defies Predictions:Atlantic Forecasts Were Way Off
ReutersSaturday, November 18, 2006


MIAMI, Nov. 17 -- The noted hurricane-forecasting team led by William Gray at Colorado State University has not missed by this much in a long time.
On May 31, they predicted that there would be 17 storms this year, and that nine would be hurricanes.
In the end, the 2006 season managed to produce nine tropical storms; five became hurricanes. None of the hurricanes hit the United States.
There are still two weeks to go, but the U.S. National Hurricane Center said there is little sign of action in the Atlantic.
The Colorado State team was not alone in predicting that 2006 would be more active than an average year, in which the Atlantic can be expected to spawn 10 tropical storms, of which six will strengthen into hurricanes.
No one foresaw what happened in 2005, when 28 storms swarmed out of the Atlantic, and 15 became hurricanes with winds of at least 74 mph. Among them, Katrina killed 1,500 people along the Gulf Coast and swamped New Orleans, while Wilma became the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever observed.
Long-range hurricane forecasting, as with all long-range weather predictions, remains a complex and error-prone task, experts say.

The experts also say that an unusual amount of sub-Saharan dust in the atmosphere over the Atlantic may have deprived potential storms of the moisture they would use as fuel.
But there are probably other factors at work that have yet to be identified.


In other words, the laws of probability will not be denied. We get better but we can never be certain. Remember, you read it here first!


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