Weather Shift Reduces Storm Forecast

His comments came as Tropical Storm Fay was looming in the Gulf off the coast of Texas. The forecasters said two other tropical storms could be expected this month.

Unusual conditions that the Colorado group said had upset their forecast included stronger than average upper tropospheric westerly winds throughout the Atlantic tropics.

They also mentioned below average sea surface temperatures, above average sea level pressure, above average strength of easterly trade winds and a strengthening El Ni?o event in the Pacific.

Atmospheric scientist William Gray and the forecast team, including Chris Landsea and Philip Klotzbach, announced that as a result of the changes, for the first time in more than 19 years of Atlantic basin hurricane forecasting, they were issuing a seasonal update, a September-only hurricane forecast, and a prediction for the remainder of the 2002 storm season.

The updated seasonal forecast reduces an already reduced Aug. 7 prediction of nine named storms, four hurricanes and one major hurricane to eight named storms, three hurricanes and one major hurricane.

According to the team, the long-term average is 9.6 named storms, 5.9 hurricanes and 2.3 major hurricanes per year. The team also said it foresees a significantly lower than average probability of United States and Caribbean basin hurricane landfall for the remainder of 2002.

Mr. Gray warned, however, that people living along the southeastern U.S. coastline and in the Caribbean basin must remain alert and prepared.
Mr. Gray said in the last three to four months team forecasts have been revised downward "to reflect recent inhibiting hurricane conditions and these cyclone suppressing influences are expected to persist for the remainder of the 2002 hurricane season."

Due to recent changes in climate signals, he said, "we believe the 2002 Atlantic basic hurricane season will be considerably below the long term average and much below what has been experienced in six of the last seven years, " he said.

The group's new September-only forecast calls for three named storms, two hurricanes and one major hurricane. The predicted storm activity is only 54 percent of the long-term September average, but will make up the majority of the remainder of this year's storm activity.

Mr. Gray and his team said they predict an early end to the 2002 hurricane season, which officially lasts through the end of November, with the majority of the season's activity occurring in September. The Colorado State team predicts that only one named storm, one hurricane and no major hurricanes will take place after September.
They called this year's storm count a deviation from the long-period average.

Global warming or any other human-caused phenomenon, is not a factor, they said.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.