US forecasters revise 2013 Atlantic hurricane season predictions
From Caribbean360
COLORADO, United States, Monday August 5, 2013 – Weather forecasters at Colorado State University (CSU) have lowered their prediction for the 2003 Atlantic Hurricane Season.
“We continue to anticipate an above-average season in 2013, although we have lowered our forecast slightly due to anomalous cooling in the eastern subtropical and tropical Atlantic,” said Philip J. Klotzbach and William M. Gray in their latest prediction.
“We expect an above-average probability of United States and Caribbean major hurricane landfall.”
Klotzbach and Gray said information obtained through July 2013 indicates that the remainder of the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season will be “more active than the average 1981-2010 season”.
They estimated that the remainder of 2013 will have about eight hurricanes (average is 5.5), 14 named storms (average is 10.5), 75 named storm days (average is 58), 35 hurricane days (average is 21.3), three major (Category 3-4-5) hurricanes (average is 2.0) and seven major hurricane days (average is 3.9).
“The probability of US major hurricane landfall and Caribbean major hurricane activity for the remainder of the 2013 season is estimated to be above its long-period average,” the two forecasters said.
“We expect the remainder of the Atlantic basin hurricane season to accrue Net Tropical Cyclone (NTC) activity approximately 140 percent of the seasonal average.”
The weather forecasters said the latest forecast is based on a “newly-developed extended-range early August statistical prediction scheme developed over the previous 33 years”.
They said an earlier statistical model that was utilized for several years has also been consulted, and that analog predictors were also considered.
Cool neutral El Nino Southern Oscillation Cycle (ENSO) conditions are currently present in the tropical Pacific, “and we believe that these conditions are likely to persist for the remainder of the Atlantic hurricane season,” Klotzbach and Gray said.
ENSO is the ocean-atmosphere interactions in the tropical and equatorial Pacific region involving abnormal sea surface temperatures and atmospheric pressures.
Weather forecasters say these abnormalities often result in changes in the trade winds. They cccur at 2-7 year intervals and may last up to two years, forecasters say.
While sea level pressure anomalies across the tropical Atlantic have been relatively low during June and July, sea surface temperatures have anomalously cooled in the eastern tropical and subtropical Atlantic, Klotzbach and Gray said.
They said these cooler conditions are “typically associated with less favourable thermodynamic conditions, which we believe could cause slightly less TC (Tropical Cyclone) activity than expected earlier”.
PHOTO: Klotzbach and Gray predict that the remainder of 2013 will have about eight hurricanes and 14 named storms.
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