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Atlantic Tropical Action 2012 - Part I


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To keep Steve excited, 1983, weakening El Nino or not, was a complete dud season, and while Alicia was closer to the heart of the season than Bonnie, Alicia, and 1986's Cat 1 Bonnie, formed in a semi-typical Nino way, from non-tropical sources. A Cat 1 hitting safely up the coast from Galveston Island doesn't imperil the vacation homes of retirees, but would provide plenty of forum excitement at KHOU-11 TV local weather forum. Last years weeks on end of 100ºF dry weather meant little interest in the forum. Or the Texas/Louisiana thread on the Central subforum here at AmWx.

I don't remember either Alicia or Bonnie, I was working out of state for Ronald Reagan during Alicia and was in the Eastern Hemipshere for Bonnie, but thank goodness for the Wiki on Bonnie.

Hurricane_Bonnie_%281986%29.JPG

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To keep Steve excited, 1983, weakening El Nino or not, was a complete dud season, and while Alicia was closer to the heart of the season than Bonnie, Alicia, and 1986's Cat 1 Bonnie, formed in a semi-typical Nino way, from non-tropical sources. A Cat 1 hitting safely up the coast from Galveston Island doesn't imperil the vacation homes of retirees, but would provide plenty of forum excitement at KHOU-11 TV local weather forum. Last years weeks on end of 100ºF dry weather meant little interest in the forum. Or the Texas/Louisiana thread on the Central subforum here at AmWx.

I don't remember either Alicia or Bonnie, I was working out of state for Ronald Reagan during Alicia and was in the Eastern Hemipshere for Bonnie, but thank goodness for the Wiki on Bonnie.

I agree with you Ed that a TX / LA cat 1 landfall is not at all uncommon in Ninos, and would certainly bring more excitement to that particular region than either of the last 2 "busy" seasons did.

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Just because of the million "it all takes one" posts every offseason, there will only be 5 hurricanes and one of them will barrel into Miami as a Cat 5.

No thanks bud Ive been done that back in 92. Just find it amusing all this seasonal prediction talk when we can't even predict steering currents without any good accuracy 2 weeks out.

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No thanks bud Ive been done that back in 92. Just find it amusing all this seasonal prediction talk when we can't even predict steering currents without any good accuracy 2 weeks out.

1) Some people don't care about steering currents, but overall activity. It may be amusing for some, but that shouldn't preclude discussion.

2) Enhanced overall activity is correlated with higher number of landfalls. It's useful even for people who think that if we can't predict steering current in the long range. Energy sector and government, among other sectors find seasonal prediction useful, even if it's vague.

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1) Some people don't care about steering currents, but overall activity. It may be amusing for some, but that shouldn't preclude discussion.

2) Enhanced overall activity is correlated with higher number of landfalls. It's useful even for people who think that if we can't predict steering current in the long range. Energy sector and government, among other sectors find seasonal prediction useful, even if it's vague.

Hey iam always in for any disussion concerning hurricanes. Tropical meteorology has always be huge passion of mine. Hopefully this seasons brings some interesting storms to track.

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Anyone else going to the American Meteorological Society hurricane conference?

This the one in Orlando? One of the local KHOU-TV 11 forum pro-mets, and energy sector/tropical guy (Winter in Texas seems to bore him), "WxMan57" is going. 57's last post said he hoped to talk w/ Dr. Klotzbach one on one during the conference.

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Not that analogs are a certainty, but a wise man has suggested 1957, 1965 as well as 2000 and 2001 may be a good fit for the upcoming season. Audrey, Betsy and a sloppy retired TS named Allison anyone?

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The MCV that moved off Texas is a month or two too early. I can almost see a hint of anticyclonic cirrus outflow on the Northern side of it, and 3 or 4ºC more SST and I think it'd be on the road to sub-tropical glory.

It looked very interesting on radar too as it came offshore. Certainly the prettiest thing in the basin since last fall!

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It looked very interesting on radar too as it came offshore. Certainly the prettiest thing in the basin since last fall!

Yup, if it had taken a more southerly track we could've had our first storm. Mesoscale convective systems (basically squall lines) have all the makings of a tropical cyclone when they develop a mesoscale convective vortex. There's a tremendous amount of stratiform rain near the MCV center, leading to latent heat release and the development of a warm core. The LHR enhances the pressure minimum and you get the classic TC-esque in up and out circulation. Also, vorticity from deep convection in the squall line feeds into the MCV lowering the pressure further.

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FWIW, WeatherBell expects a below normal Atlantic hurricane season:

Named storms: 9-12

Hurricanes: 4-6

Major hurricanes: 2-3

ACE Index: 75-95

http://www.forbes.com/sites/weatherbell/2012/04/03/damaging-hurricanes-could-impact-energy-insurance-industries-in-2012/

Unfortunately, the article also took a shot at the NHC. In part, it stated, "While the National Hurricane Center may be quick to name storms all across the Atlantic Basin, not all named tropical systems are created equally." That commentary creates the impression that if the WeatherBell forecast is too low, rather than recognizing forecasting error (inherent in all seasonal forecasts) as the reason, the implication would be that the NHC "named" too many storms, some of which should not have been named. The reality is that the NHC is highly professional, and is committed both to objectivity and excellence. The NHC does not name storms for the sake of naming them.

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Am I the only one who thinks the "it only takes one" thing people always throw in for forecast slow seasons isn't really some kind of public service announcement, as if people on the a weather board will log off until November and not pay attention because Klotzbach/Gray predicted a slow season, but is rather a form of weeniesih optimist, more like "it only takes one, we can still hit the Southern suburbs of Miami with a Cat 5 even if the season is otherwise deadly dull monster warm ENSO".

Or maybe that is just my own glass half full optimism leaking out.

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I’m not so sure the season will be a total dud. The tendency has been to rush the ENSO state a bit too fast, IMO thus lending to neutral conditions during the summer and possibly the beginning of peak season. My favored areas continue to be the Western Caribbean and Western Gulf for early storm activity transitioning to the Central Caribbean as peak season nears.

As far as an early WAG, I believe that 13/5/2 seems reasonable at this point, but realizing that a bit earlier arrival of El Nino conditions could lead to a bit lower numbers. We will see.

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I’m not so sure the season will be a total dud. The tendency has been to rush the ENSO state a bit too fast, IMO thus lending to neutral conditions during the summer and possibly the beginning of peak season. My favored areas continue to be the Western Caribbean and Western Gulf for early storm activity transitioning to the Central Caribbean as peak season nears.

As far as an early WAG, I believe that 13/5/2 seems reasonable at this point, but realizing that a bit earlier arrival of El Nino conditions could lead to a bit lower numbers. We will see.

My research suggests that El Nino's more often than not tend to start slowing things down vs. climo when the SOI gets pretty solidly negative, which often occurs a couple of months earlier than when we're in a Nino based on 3.4 SST anomalies reaching and remaining above +0.5 C. It will be interesting to see what happens this time if we get a Nino. That having been said, I'm currently leaning to a weak to perhaps moderate strength Nino assuming one verifies. If it ends up as only weak, then the quieting effect would probably not be as strong as with a typical moderate+ Nino.

Edit: Despite quieter on average during the July-Nov. period as a whole during Nino's, June's actually average above longterm climo. (I'm guessing due to more disturbances tending to drift into the Gulf during Nino's in June).

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I’m not so sure the season will be a total dud. The tendency has been to rush the ENSO state a bit too fast, IMO thus lending to neutral conditions during the summer and possibly the beginning of peak season. My favored areas continue to be the Western Caribbean and Western Gulf for early storm activity transitioning to the Central Caribbean as peak season nears.

As far as an early WAG, I believe that 13/5/2 seems reasonable at this point, but realizing that a bit earlier arrival of El Nino conditions could lead to a bit lower numbers. We will see.

Eurosip is a monster warm ENSO, but maybe the CFS will be the blind squirrel this year...

PDFcr_nino34SSTMon.gif

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