2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season

[Prospero]

17 hours ago, JakkelWx said:

That was the craziest Atlantic hurricane season in my lifetime besides 2005. 2020

Curious what is ahead of us.

Weird to me that so many what should have been perfect eyes never materialized. Maybe that is why the ocean could not get rid of its heat?

[Floydbuster]

It was a very weird hurricane season. I think I'm getting old. It was 20 years ago that I joined the first hurricane message board, which eventually lead to more of them. It just seems like it used to be easier to keep track of "active" hurricanes. When I was a teen, the costliest storms were easy: Andrew, Hugo, Floyd. Boom. Done. I wouldn't even know what the list is now. You have storms like "Sandy" which wasn't even technically a hurricane at landfall. We had a Cat 5 landfall in 2018, but it was in mid-October. We had a slew of extremely busy years (2010-2011-2012) with lackluster landfalls, followed by incredibly slow seasons (2013-2014-2015). Seasons so "boring" that I essentially feel like I didn't track hurricanes during much of the Obama Years. 

2020 was insane, but I don't understand all the backlogged seasons in the last decade. What's with the insane Octobers? Weird high-latitude Cat 4s in October like Ophelia 2011? Cat 5 U.S. Landfall in mid-October 2018? Hurricane Joaquin with his messed up late-season southwest track in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? This year: Delta, Zeta, Eta, Iota....all monsters...all in mid-October or later. What the hell? Is it some sort of climate change? I'm a skeptic when it comes to hurricanes and climate change, but it sure as hell feels different. "Busy" seasons when I was a teen were like 2001. The "I" storm in October. Now we have a Greek letter in October. What gives? Any ideas? Are we naming too much junk?

Another thing: What's with all the non-U.S. hurricanes being put on U.S. landfall lists? Putting random Typhoons that hit Guam 60 years ago on a list with Michael and Andrew. What the hell is that? Saying Hurricane Maria "hit the U.S." I have relatives who live in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is not the United States of America. Now I see the 1928 hurricane's Cat 5 Puerto Rican landfall being called "U.S." landfall. What the hell is that?

I guess I just got used to Steve Lyons and John Hope on the Weather Channel with Kristina Abernathy and Jeff Morrow tracking normal hurricanes on normal maps. I turn on the Weather Channel now and they do "Special Coverage" of an invest. In my day John Hope would've circled it on the tropical update at :50 past the hour and said "Nothing there, but we will watch it. That's it for this time." Now there are supermodel women with 3D graphics showing invest model plots. It kinda takes the notoriety out of our online weather community.

 

[Windspeed]

It was a very weird hurricane season. I think I'm getting old. It was 20 years ago that I joined the first hurricane message board, which eventually lead to more of them. It just seems like it used to be easier to keep track of "active" hurricanes. When I was a teen, the costliest storms were easy: Andrew, Hugo, Floyd. Boom. Done. I wouldn't even know what the list is now. You have storms like "Sandy" which wasn't even technically a hurricane at landfall. We had a Cat 5 landfall in 2018, but it was in mid-October. We had a slew of extremely busy years (2010-2011-2012) with lackluster landfalls, followed by incredibly slow seasons (2013-2014-2015). Seasons so "boring" that I essentially feel like I didn't track hurricanes during much of the Obama Years.  2020 was insane, but I don't understand all the backlogged seasons in the last decade. What's with the insane Octobers? Weird high-latitude Cat 4s in October like Ophelia 2011? Cat 5 U.S. Landfall in mid-October 2018? Hurricane Joaquin with his messed up late-season southwest track in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? This year: Delta, Zeta, Eta, Iota....all monsters...all in mid-October or later. What the hell? Is it some sort of climate change? I'm a skeptic when it comes to hurricanes and climate change, but it sure as hell feels different. "Busy" seasons when I was a teen were like 2001. The "I" storm in October. Now we have a Greek letter in October. What gives? Any ideas? Are we naming too much junk? Another thing: What's with all the non-U.S. hurricanes being put on U.S. landfall lists? Putting random Typhoons that hit Guam 60 years ago on a list with Michael and Andrew. What the hell is that? Saying Hurricane Maria "hit the U.S." I have relatives who live in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is not the United States of America. Now I see the 1928 hurricane's Cat 5 Puerto Rican landfall being called "U.S." landfall. What the hell is that? I guess I just got used to Steve Lyons and John Hope on the Weather Channel with Kristina Abernathy and Jeff Morrow tracking normal hurricanes on normal maps. I turn on the Weather Channel now and they do "Special Coverage" of an invest. In my day John Hope would've circled it on the tropical update at :50 past the hour and said "Nothing there, but we will watch it. That's it for this time." Now there are supermodel women with 3D graphics showing invest model plots. It kinda takes the notoriety out of our online weather community.

U.S. federal territory is now included in landfalls. Probably should have always been if costing American citizens / taxpayers direct to indirect casualties and economic impacts. That being said, PR may end up being an actual state at some point anyway.

 

As for the late season fireworks, other than the outrageous 2017 Cape Verde season, seasons over the past decade have seemingly experienced intense hurricanes at a later date. I am a little reluctant to say it is entirely due to climate change because this might be an episodic cyclical period that has occurred in previous centuries or beyond the scope of good shipping reports / meteorological data. However, I am not saying it isn't due to climate change. There are a lot of variables and perhaps climate change is having an influence on mid-season / early Cape Verde seasonal shear patterns that wanes later in September, allowing for an active October. Perhaps it has just been a stretch of bad luck in randomness or statistical probability? I still expect seasons like 2004 and 2017 for a more atypical active Augusts and early September CV season. There is no doubt the overall trend has swung later into the season at least on a recent decadal timescale however.

[LibertyBell]

On 1/26/2021 at 9:19 AM, Windspeed said:

U.S. federal territory is now included in landfalls. Probably should have always been if costing American citizens / taxpayers direct to indirect casualties and economic impacts. That being said, PR may end up being an actual state at some point anyway.

 

As for the late season fireworks, other than the outrageous 2017 Cape Verde season, seasons over the past decade have seemingly experienced intense hurricanes at a later date. I am a little reluctant to say it is entirely due to climate change because this might be an episodic cyclical period that has occurred in previous centuries or beyond the scope of good shipping reports / meteorological data. However, I am not saying it isn't due to climate change. There are a lot of variables and perhaps climate change is having an influence on mid-season / early Cape Verde seasonal shear patterns that wanes later in September, allowing for an active October. Perhaps it has just been a stretch of bad luck in randomness or statistical probability? I still expect seasons like 2004 and 2017 for a more atypical active Augusts and early September CV season. There is no doubt the overall trend has swung later into the season at least on a recent decadal timescale however.

perhaps beyond the scope of this discussion but do you think science will ever advance to the point where we can control these monsters or at the very least find some kind of mechanical release to cool down SST (or create shear) to lessen the impact of these beasts?

 

[Windspeed]

perhaps beyond the scope of this discussion but do you think science will ever advance to the point where we can control these monsters or at the very least find some kind of mechanical release to cool down SST (or create shear) to lessen the impact of these beasts?

 

If humans or its resulting AI civilization doesn't extinguish / destroy itself, it is hypothetically possible that some sentient intelligence will be able to control the planet's weather at some point in the distant future. However, in the shorter term, it is likely unachievable from an macro engineering scale and far more realistic that we merely take better actions to protect coastal communities and advance their preparedness. I mean, that is if you even give any credence or thoughts to the Kardashev scale.

[LibertyBell]

4 minutes ago, Windspeed said:

19 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

perhaps beyond the scope of this discussion but do you think science will ever advance to the point where we can control these monsters or at the very least find some kind of mechanical release to cool down SST (or create shear) to lessen the impact of these beasts?

 

 

If humans or its resulting AI civilization doesn't extinguish / destroy itself, it is hypothetically possible that some sentient intelligence will be able to control the planet's weather at some point in the distant future. However, in the shorter term, it is likely unachievable from an macro engineering scale and far more realistic that we merely take better actions to protect coastal communities and advance their preparedness. I mean, that is if you even give any credence or thoughts to the Kardashev scale.

Your thoughts dovetail mine.  In addition to the Kardashev scale, I think it's logical that this type of geoengineering will be a prerequisite before we can colonize other worlds (for example, Mars.)  Some of the techniques developed to do that there may also be applied here (which seems to often be the case with developments from our space program.)

Much more reasonable within our lifetimes though would be protecting our coastal communities and better preparing them.  I see that cities near the water are developing safeguards against excessive flooding (both from the ocean and from the sky), some of which involves promoting a natural flood plain (like Houston) or creating checks on rising sea levels to prevent them from flooding cities (for example Miami, Charleston and even NYC.)

 

[Windspeed]

Your thoughts dovetail mine.  In addition to the Kardashev scale, I think it's logical that this type of geoengineering will be a prerequisite before we can colonize other worlds (for example, Mars.)  Some of the techniques developed to do that there may also be applied here (which seems to often be the case with developments from our space program.)

Much more reasonable within our lifetimes though would be protecting our coastal communities and better preparing them.  I see that cities near the water are developing safeguards against excessive flooding (both from the ocean and from the sky), some of which involves promoting a natural flood plain (like Houston) or creating checks on rising sea levels to prevent them from flooding cities (for example Miami, Charleston and even NYC.)

 

Not to completely divert off-topic here but I think we can colonize with domes and perhaps even produce atmosphere before we can forcefully manipulate the randomness of chaotic liquid flow eddies between low and high pressure systems. Perhaps even being able to make a planet breathable before we can control the thermal-coupled dynamics between the Earth's oceans and resultant drivin lapse rates into its atmosphere. That is some serious crazy physics control at that point that might not come into human or AI control until far later into advancements of space exploration and settlement that we are a long ways off from achieving. Take a planet like Venus, for example. Yeah. Yikes. We've got a long way to go before we can simply snuff out a macro system like a Category 5 hurricane.

[LibertyBell]

1 minute ago, Windspeed said:

11 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

Your thoughts dovetail mine.  In addition to the Kardashev scale, I think it's logical that this type of geoengineering will be a prerequisite before we can colonize other worlds (for example, Mars.)  Some of the techniques developed to do that there may also be applied here (which seems to often be the case with developments from our space program.)
Much more reasonable within our lifetimes though would be protecting our coastal communities and better preparing them.  I see that cities near the water are developing safeguards against excessive flooding (both from the ocean and from the sky), some of which involves promoting a natural flood plain (like Houston) or creating checks on rising sea levels to prevent them from flooding cities (for example Miami, Charleston and even NYC.)
 

Not to completely divert off-topic here but I think we can colonize with domes and perhaps even produce atmosphere before we can forcefully manipulate the randomness of chaotic liquid flow eddies between low and high pressures. Perhaps even being able to make a planet breathable before we can control thermal-coupled dynamics between the Earth's oceans and driving lapse rates into its atmosphere. That is some serious physics control there that might come far later even into space exploration and settlement. Take a planet like Venus, for example. Yikes. We've got a long way to go before we can simply snuff out a macro system like a Category 5 hurricane.

Good thinking!  That's why I think "prevention" would come far before "cure" could (like simulating shear or somehow being able to lower sea temps).  The kind of circulation adjustments involved though may be extremely complicated to create and we'd of course we'd have to weigh benefits vs risks.  The dome and artificial atmosphere idea for colonization is extremely intriguing, I suppose we could first develop that in space before even colonizing another world.  Having a space colony orbiting earth sounds like a good testing ground.

Speaking of Venus, it may have a habitable zone, but it would have to be far up in the atmosphere.  The idea of a floating city as you describe it (with a dome and breathable bubble within it) sounds intriguing.

 

[Windspeed]

Hurricane Committee discusses record-breaking 2020 season, plans for 2021

[yoda]

Interesting... I did not know anything about the underwater hurricane gliders.  I will have to look those up and see how those are done/released

[NorthHillsWx]

20 hours ago, yoda said:

Interesting... I did not know anything about the underwater hurricane gliders.  I will have to look those up and see how those are done/released

We came across one in the gulfstream off Morehead city while offshore fishing 2 days after hurricane Dorian passed a couple years ago. Wish I could find the video 

[MoistWx]

According to the WMO, the names Dorian, Laura, Eta and Iota from the 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season have been retired. The Greek alphabet will no longer be used for future hurricane seasons, and a supplemental name list will be used in its place. Interesting.

 

https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/wmo-hurricane-committee-retires-tropical-cyclone-names-and-ends-use-of-greek

[CheeselandSkies]

6 minutes ago, MoistWx said:

According to the WMO, the names Dorian, Laura, Eta and Iota from the 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season have been retired. The Greek alphabet will no longer be used for future hurricane seasons, and a supplemental name list will be used in its place. Interesting.

 

https://public.wmo.int/en/media/press-release/wmo-hurricane-committee-retires-tropical-cyclone-names-and-ends-use-of-greek

Dorian was from '19.

[MoistWx]

1 minute ago, CheeselandSkies said:

Dorian was from '19.

Oops... Yes, good catch. That's what I get for posting while also being in severe weenie mode 

[ncforecaster89]

Noticed that the hurricane Laura thread can no longer be found in this particular sub forum.  Anyone know why that may be?  

[cptcatz]

5 hours ago, ncforecaster89 said:

Noticed that the hurricane Laura thread can no longer be found in this particular sub forum.  Anyone know why that may be?  

I was also looking for the Sally thread a while back and couldn't find it either, only the banter thread.

[ncforecaster89]

14 hours ago, cptcatz said:

I was also looking for the Sally thread a while back and couldn't find it either, only the banter thread.

As you noted, the various banter threads are available but the actual storm threads are missing for Laura, Sally, Dorian, Michael, and Harvey...just to name the most obvious.   

[Eskimo Joe]

 

[JakkelWx]

Hurricanes will be more relevant to me than ever before.

[Eskimo Joe]

 

 

[dan11295]

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames_history.shtml

This page has the new alternate naming lists replacing the Greek letters.

[Windspeed]

Zeta's post-season analysis upgrade to Category 3 puts the 2020 season at 7 major hurricanes, tied with 2005.

[jaxjagman]

On 5/8/2021 at 2:10 AM, ncforecaster89 said:

Noticed that the hurricane Laura thread can no longer be found in this particular sub forum.  Anyone know why that may be?  

If you start a thread you can moderate it and delete the whole thing,not sure that is what happened but seems possible.

[LoboLeader1]

 

 From philklotzbach on Twitter:

NOAA officially declares end of La Nina, as sea surface temperature anomalies increased in eastern & central tropical Pacific. However, NOAA's odds of #ElNino for peak of Atlantic hurricane season (Aug-Oct) are very low (8%). El Nino typically reduces Atlantic hurricane activity.

[yoda]

Interesting... they downgraded Major Hurricane Iota to a high end Cat 4 at 155mph after postseason analysis 

https://mobile.twitter.com/JakeCarstens/status/1394742090966372359

[WxWatcher007]

On 5/8/2021 at 10:45 PM, ncforecaster89 said:

As you noted, the various banter threads are available but the actual storm threads are missing for Laura, Sally, Dorian, Michael, and Harvey...just to name the most obvious.   

 

On 5/12/2021 at 11:33 PM, jaxjagman said:

If you start a thread you can moderate it and delete the whole thing,not sure that is what happened but seems possible.

That's exactly what happened. I was leaving the board and was preparing to delete my account but asked an admin to try to save the threads. I guess that didn't work out...

I'm not sure if they're archived somewhere or not. I guess I started a lot of prolific tropical threads.

Sorry guys.

[Windspeed]

That's exactly what happened. I was leaving the board and was preparing to delete my account but asked an admin to try to save the threads. I guess that didn't work out... I'm not sure if they're archived somewhere or not. I guess I started a lot of prolific tropical threads. Sorry guys.  

 

 

Wait, what? You're leaving?  Wow, I just noticed a huge chunk of threads missing. Damn... Sheesh. Michael, Dorian, Irma (initial), Matthew threads. That's a huge amount of discussion gone forever.

 

 

[Tezeta]

I’ll start threads from here on out. It’s all good. Let’s be future-oriented. 2021 is gonna rock. 

[Windspeed]

I’ll start threads from here on out. It’s all good. Let’s be future-oriented. 2021 is gonna rock. 

lol

[WxWatcher007]

24 minutes ago, Windspeed said:

Wait, what? You're leaving?  Wow, I just noticed a huge chunk of threads missing. Damn... Sheesh. Michael, Dorian, Irma (initial), Matthew threads. That's a huge amount of discussion gone forever.

 

 

I was on my way out but some friends pulled me back.

I know…it totally sucks. Not sure why a whole thread needs to go when the OP does. Didn’t realize I started so many threads but I guess the last few years it’s just been me and you starting these things here. 

Maybe an admin can see if they’re archived somewhere?