For those of us on the east coast, especially Carolinas and Florida.

Hurricane forecaster predicts repeat another busy storm season

FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) -- Colorado State University hurricane forecaster William Gray is sticking by his prediction that the 1999 hurricane season will be similar to what the Atlantic Basin saw last year.

Last year's 14 tropical storms and 10 hurricanes killed at least 10,000 people, mostly Honduran victims of Hurricane Mitch.

Earlier this month, Gray warned that Florida, which has been lucky the past 25 years, "is a sitting duck" in the upcoming hurricane season.

"We're going to be seeing a $50 billion-, $70 billion-, $100 billion-damage storm," he said.

Tuesday's update calls for 14 tropical storms, nine hurricanes and four intense hurricanes. They are the same figures issued in Gray's initial 1999 forecast released in December.

That compares to 14, 10 and three that occurred in 1998. Long-term averages are 9.3 tropical storms, 5.8 hurricanes and 2.2 intense hurricanes annually.

Meanwhile, Gray said the probability of a major storm hitting the East Coast and Florida Peninsula is about twice the long-term average, one-and-a-half times the long-term average for the Gulf Coast and slightly less than twice the long-term average for the Caribbean.

A major storm has winds of at least 111 mph. The long-term average is based on intense hurricanes hitting land for the areas from 1950-94.

"We expect the current La Nina below-average water conditions in the eastern equatorial Pacific to continue through the 1999 hurricane season," Gray said.

Other climatic factors expected to affect the June 1-Nov. 30, 1999 hurricane season include westerly stratospheric winds, expected above-average Atlantic sea surface temperatures and anticipated below-average Caribbean Basin sea-level pressure in August and September.

"All these factors are ... expected to enhance 1999 hurricane activity," Gray said.

-- Taz (Tassie@aol.com), April 09, 1999

Answers

Florida has been lucky? I guess you had to be there for andrew,give me a break!

-- daryll (twinck@wfeca.net), April 09, 1999.

Taz, talk about synchronicity! (See post re free bulletins.)

Daryll, exactly! During the last 25 years there "should" have been several more Andrews hitting Florida. Gray thinks there may well be another this season.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 09, 1999.

Just thought I'd add my .02 worth. Here are some interesting numbers from the National Hurricane Center on U.S. strikes by decade, and by state. One thing that jumps out, is that Florida has historically been struck MUCH less then it should, when you consider it has more coastline then Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama combined (or Georgia to New York combined). Looking at this, North Carolina or Louisiana seem to get hit the most per mile of coastal exposure.

Living in S.E. Florida is one reason why my spending on Y2K doesn't much bother me, even if it turns out to be a bump in the road. I now have an alternate energy system (solar) and have discovered a lot of items that will serve me well in the event that we have another Andrew type storm.

1619151723181512167

DECADE	Category					ALL   1,2,3,4,5	Major   3,4,5
	1	2	3	4	5
1900-1909	5	5	4	2	0	6
1910-1919	8	3	5	3	0	8
1920-1929	6	4	3	2	0	5
1930-1939	4	5	6	1	1	8
1940-1949	7	8	7	1	0	8
1950-1959	8	1	7	2	0	9
1960-1969	4	5	3	2	1	6
1970-1979	6	2	4	0	0	4
1980-1989	9	1	5	1	0	6
1990-1996	0	3	3	1	0	4
1900-1996	57	37	47	15	2	158	64

6< TD>11

AREA	Category Number					ALL   1,2,3,4,5	MAJOR   3,4,5
	1	2	3	4	5
U.S. (Texas to Maine)	58	36	47	15	2	158	64
Texas	12	9	9	6	0< /TD>	36	15
(North)	7	3	3	4	0	17	7
(Central)	2	2	1	1	0	2
(South)	3	4	5	1	0	13	6
Louisiana	8	5	8	3	1	25	12
Mississippi	1	1	5	0	8	6
Alabama	4	1	5	0	0	10	5
Florida	17	16	17	6	57	24
(Northwest)	9	8	7	0	0	24	7
(Northeast)	2	7	0	0	0	9	0
(Southwest)	6	3	6	2	1	18	9
(Southeast)	5	10	7	4	0	26	11
Georgia	1	4	0	0	0	5	0
South Carolina	6	4	2	2	0	14< /TD>	4
North Carolina	10	4	10	1 *	0	25	11
Virginia	2	1	1 *	0	0	4	1 *
Maryland	0	1 *	0	0	0	1 *	0
Delaware	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
New Jersey	1 *	0	0	0	0	1 *	0
New York	3	1 *	5 *	0	0	9	5 *
Connecticut	2	3 *	3 *	0	0	8	3 *
Rhode Island	0	2 *	3 *	0	0	5 *	3 *
Massachusetts	2	2 *	2 *	0	0	6	2 *
New Hampshire	1 *	1 *	0	0	0	2 *	0
Maine	5 *	0	0	0	0	5 *	0

Notes: ^* - Indicates all hurricanes in this group were moving faster than 30 mph.
State totals will not necessarily equal U.S. totals, and Texas or Florida totals will not necessarily equal sum of sectional totals.

-- Online2Much (ready_for_y2k(_and_hurricanes)@mindspring.com), April 09, 1999.

Hmmm...not sure what happened - it looked fine in my html editing program preview....one more try.

1619151723181512167

DECADE	Category					ALL 1,2,3,4,5	Major 3,4,5
	1	2	3	4	5
1900-1909	5	5	4	2	0	6
1910-1919	8	3	5	3	0	8
1920-1929	6	4	3	2	0	5
1930-1939	4	5	6	1	1	8
1940-1949	7	8	7	1	0	8
1950-1959	8	1	7	2	0	9
1960-1969	4	5	3	2	1	6
1970-1979	6	2	4	0	0	4
1980-1989	9	1	5	1	0	6
1990-1996	0	3	3	1	0	4
1900-1996	57	37	47	15	2	158	64

6< TD>11

AREA	Category Number					ALL 1,2,3,4,5	MAJOR 3,4,5
	1	2	3	4	5
U.S. (Texas to Maine)	58	36	47	15	2	158	64
Texas	12	9	9	6	0< /TD>	36	15
(North)	7	3	3	4	0	17	7
(Central)	2	2	1	1	0	2
(South)	3	4	5	1	0	13	6
Louisiana	8	5	8	3	1	25	12
Mississippi	1	1	5	0	8	6
Alabama	4	1	5	0	0	10	5
Florida	17	16	17	6	57	24
(Northwest)	9	8	7	0	0	24	7
(Northeast)	2	7	0	0	0	9	0
(Southwest)	6	3	6	2	1	18	9
(Southeast)	5	10	7	4	0	26	11
Georgia	1	4	0	0	0	5	0
South Carolina	6	4	2	2	0	14< /TD>	4
North Carolina	10	4	10	1 *	0	25	11
Virginia	2	1	1 *	0	0	4	1 *
Maryland	0	1 *	0	0	0	1 *	0
Delaware	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
New Jersey	1 *	0	0	0	0	1 *	0
New York	3	1 *	5 *	0	0	9	5 *
Connecticut	2	3 *	3 *	0	0	8	3 *
Rhode Island	0	2 *	3 *	0	0	5 *	3 *
Massachusetts	2	2 *	2 *	0	0	6	2 *
New Hampshire	1 *	1 *	0	0	0	2 *	0
Maine	5 *	0	0	0	0	5 *	0

Notes: ^* - Indicates all hurricanes in this group were moving faster than 30 mph.
State totals will not necessarily equal U.S. totals, and Texas or Florida totals will not necessarily equal sum of sectional totals.

-- Online2Much (ready_for_y2k@mindspring.com), April 09, 1999.

sigh. to hell with it, here are the links

by decade

by state

-- Online2Much (ready_for_html_lessons@mindspring.com), April 09, 1999.

Interesting charts, O2M, thanks. Please also see site below where you can find info on free tropical storm/hurricane bulletins (e-mail) from Lowe's.

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000hY1

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 09, 1999.

Well - now - can anyone tie the hurricanes in the South and the blizzards in the North and general weather patterns to our predicted sun spot activity???

-- Valkyrie (anon@please.net), April 09, 1999.

From: Mark Graffis

The notion that changes in the sun may be affecting our climate has received a small boost from a study by some NASA and Navy researchers -- but not enough to unseat greenhouse gases as the most probable culprit behind global climate change. For years there's been a debate about how much the sun's 11- to 12-year "sunspot cycle" could be contributing to global warming. During the peak of the cycle, solar flares throw out huge masses of hot gas and energetic particles. When these masses of hot, ionized hydrogen hit the Earth's magnetic field, they bend it out of shape, disrupting radio communications. Most scientists are skeptical that the small fluxes in the sun's energy output during these cycles have much effect on our climate, says David Rind, a researcher at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Center for Climate Systems Research at Columbia University. Rind co-authored a new study published in this week's journal Science in which he and his colleagues use a computer model to test solar cycle effects on the atmosphere. "We tried to use realistic solar forcing," Rind says of the models they ran, "but got no (climate) reaction." Rind and his colleagues found that "solar maximums" and "minimums" probably do significantly change the amounts of ozone and heating in the upper atmosphere, or stratosphere. Their work also shows that the heating does likely propagate downward into the much more massive troposphere, or lower atmosphere. However, the effect of the coupling between the layers of atmosphere is so small that it's unlikely to be effecting the global climate, Rind says. "It's coupled," says researcher John Mak of the Institute for Terrestrial and Planetary Atmospheres at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, "but it's weak." What's more likely, says Mak, is that solar cycles play just a bit part in a much bigger drama among the Earth's stratosphere, troposphere, land masses and the oceans. According to Jerry Mahlman, director of Princeton's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, even when researchers simplify the drama by subtracting out known big players -- like greenhouse gases, volcanic eruptions and the like -- the naturally chaotic interactions between the oceans and the atmosphere still cause climate fluctuations that dwarf solar cycles. By Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery Online News

[29]Copyright ) 1999 Discovery Communications Inc.

1. http://www.discovery.com/online.html

-- Hallyx (Hallyx@aol.com), April 10, 1999.