Higher U.S. Hurricane Damage Predicted

By Daniel Hays

NU Online News Service, April 10, 4:03 p.m. EST? Hurricanes hitting the U.S. coastline this year will likely do significant more damage an average storm season, a weather expert said today.

This year, hurricanes that hit the United States have the potential of being 20 percent more destructive than in a normal year, explained Philip Klotzbach, a member of the Colorado State University Atmospheric Science Department forecast team in Fort Collins, Colo.

Mr. Klotzbach made his comments in the course of explaining details of the Colorado group's April forecast, which predicts 12 named storms and seven hurricanes for the Atlantic Basin.

Atmospheric scientist William M. Gray, the team leader, said the United States has been lucky over past years and, in the future, can expect more costly storms to hit its coast.

The team predicts there is a 57 percent chance that the U.S. East Coast will be hit by a major hurricane this year and 75 percent chance that the entire U.S. coastline, including the Gulf of Mexico will be see a hurricane landfall.

The forecast group makes predictions in December, April, June and August. Its April predictions against actual number of hurricanes over the past three years were as follows:

? In 2001, 6 forecast vs. 9 events.

? In 2000, 7 forecast vs. 8 events.

? In 1999, 9 forecast vs. 8 events.

The April forecast, released last week at the National Hurricane Conference in Orlando, Fla., decreased the forecasted number of hurricanes made in early December from eight to seven. The number of named storms was estimated at 13, also down by one. Tropical storms are given names for identification when they reach a wind speed of 40 miles per hour.

Mr. Gray, in announcing the revised numbers for the June 1 to Nov. 30 hurricane season, said, "Although we have adjusted our forecast numbers down by one cyclone due to the development of a stronger El Nino than we anticipated in December, we still foresee an active 2002 hurricane season."

The updated predictions forecast that three of the seven hurricanes will hit the "major hurricane" Saffir/Simpson category 3-4-5 level, which means sustained winds of 111 mph or greater.

According to the forecasters, a currently forming El Nino will not be strong enough to greatly reduce this year's hurricane activity such as occurred in 1997, 1987, 1983 and 1972.

The team predicts hurricane activity this year will be more typical of the seasons of 1951, 1953, 1957 and 1969, which had moderate El Ninos and warm Atlantic sea surface temperatures similar to what is expected this year.

"A remarkable upturn in Atlantic Basin hurricane activity has occurred in the past seven years," Mr. Gray said. "We believe we have entered a new, multi-decadal era for increased storm activity, particularly an increase in the number of major hurricanes, which will likely last another two or three decades."

The recent period from 1995-2001 has constituted the most active seven consecutive years on record, with the Atlantic basin witnessing 94 named storms, 58 hurricanes and 27 major hurricanes, according to the Colorado State team.

However, Mr. Gray pointed out that only three of the 27 major hurricanes (Opal, Bret and Fran) crossed the United States coastline. Over the last century, approximately one in every three major hurricanes made landfall in the United States.

According to the research team, this nation should have experienced about nine major hurricane landfall events since 1995. Additionally, the United States has witnessed 19 consecutive Atlantic basin hurricanes within the last two-and-a-half years without one of the hurricanes making landfall.

"This has never happened before. We have been very lucky," Mr. Gray said. "The storms have been out there, but they have just not come ashore. By contrast, the Caribbean basin has seen a great increase in landfalling hurricanes since 1995."

Beyond the past seven years, the United States also has seen a significant decrease in major hurricane landfalls over the past three-and-a-half decades. According to Mr. Gray, this pattern has resulted from a rare combination of multi-decadal global circulation changes and pure luck and cannot be expected to continue.

"We should anticipate the century-long landfall climatology to eventually right itself and must expect a large increase in landfalling hurricanes in the coming years," Mr. Gray said. "With exploding growth in coastal populations and property values, we must be prepared for levels of hurricane damage many, many times greater than has occurred in the past three decades."

The team does not attribute recent and projected Atlantic hurricane increases to human-induced global warming. They believe the changes are a natural consequence of climate variability that has been a continuing feature of atmosphere-ocean changes since the last Ice Age.

The team forecast announcement noted that Mr. Gray, with colleagues Christopher Landsea, Eric Blake and Mr. Klotzbach, is in his 19th year of forecasting Atlantic basin storms and is finding that many global atmospheric and oceanic precursor signals can be used to estimate future Atlantic basin hurricane activity and landfall probability.

The team searches for global atmospheric and oceanic parameters which, in the past, have shown the ability to distinguish between active and inactive hurricane seasons at various time lags, then applies this analysis to predict future year conditions.

Mr. Gray and his team will be issuing 2002 season update forecasts again on May 31.

Special Reports /

Higher U.S. Hurricane Damage Predicted

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