Coastal watches/warnings and 5-Day track forecast cone for Hurricane Bill
Courtesy NOAAThe names for the 2009 hurricanes were announced a few days ago by the National Hurricane Center (NHC). The NHC has a list of names they draw from, that reuses names every six years or so, but if a storm is particularly bad a name will be retired. There are no "Q" or "U" names and they go alphabetically so when they get to Danny you'll know that's the fourth of the season. The names for 2009 are:
Ana, Bill, Claudette, Danny, Erika, Fred, Grace, Henri, Ida, Joaquin, Kate, Larry, Mindy, Nicholas, Odette, Pete, Rose, Sam, Teresa, Victor and Wanda.
(Interesting the names "Pete" and "Rose" are in succession.)
So far this year we're up to Claudette. Ana is old news already with the National Hurricane Center announcing yesterday that the storm had weakened so much they were no longer tracking it. Claudette is also weakening, but it had the distinction of being the first tropical system to reach land yet this season. Third in line is Bill, who has already become a category 3 hurricane. Follow Bill’s progress here.
Tags : The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has issued its Atlantic hurricane season forecast. The prediction -- "near-normal" -- fits pretty well with the forecasts from AccuWeather, Colorado State University, WSI Corporation, and the Weather Research Center. What does "near-normal" mean? NOAA is predicting 9 to 14 named storms, with 4 to 7 hurricanes, and 1 to 3 major storms (category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale of storm intensity).
But storm prediction is a tricky business. More rainfall over West Africa, warmer sea surface temperatures, and reduced wind shear could encourage more storms. An El Nino pattern in the Pacific or cooler ocean temperatures could discourage them. NOAA will issue another prediction in August, just before the usual peak in the hurricane season.
Researchers at Florida State University have found that hurricane activity, both in the North Atlantic and globally, is at a 30-year low, and the trend is expected to continue.
Many people viewed the disastrous 2005 hurricane season as evidence of global warming. Others have pointed to the calmer-than-normal years since then as evidence that global warming is just hype.
Both sides are wrong. Climate is about long-term trends. A single season -- or even a string of seasons -- is not enough to establish a pattern, especially with something as complex as weather. As the Florida report notes, further study is needed before we'll really know what's going on.
You can use StormPulse to track hurricanes, etc.
Satellite image of Hurricane Katrina
Courtesy NOAAI just got an email from Scientific American with a link to a really cool grouping of web resources on hurricanes. Check out the Scientific American Guide to Hurricanes here.
Gustav was the seventh named storm in the 2008 Hurricane season, and we quickly have four more, including three in the Atlantic.
Hanna has hit Haiti leaving at least 10 dead and could hit the East coast as early as Friday. It is currently a tropical storm, but forecasters say it could be back to hurricane strength again before making landfall on the East coast. Check out the storm track for this storm here.
Ike is headed to the area of the Bahamas and could reach the area by Sunday. The area would then have been hit by four storms in a row, Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike. Check out the storm track for this storm here.
Tropical storm Josephine formed today and hurricane center said it could near hurricane force by Wednesday or Thursday. Check out the storm track for this storm here.
In the Pacific Karina is a new storm that at this point does not pose any risk to the West coast or other inhabited areas in the Pacific.
My homepage: This is my homepage with a couple of the mentioned gadgets.
Courtesy JoeIf you are interested in tracking hurricanes, typhoons, tropical storms, etc. there is a cool gadget available for your Google hompage (and probably others) that allows you to view, track and interact with maps that show the most current active of these tropical weather systems. Its an interesting way to keep up and monitor the systems - and remind yourself that they happen all over the world. The one I use is here but I am sure there are others that are similar.
There are also gadgets for earthquakes, volcanoes and even one specific to world disaster photos.
A prominent federal meteorologist has reversed his stance on global warming’s role in the recent increase in hurricanes. Tom Knutson, a researcher for the NOAA fluid dynamics lab in Princeton, has published a new paper in the journal Nature Geoscience predicting that Atlantic hurricanes will decrease by 18 percent by century’s end.
The new study is already brewing up a storm of its own because Knutson has complained in the past of being censored by the Bush administration for his previous views of climate change’s adverse effect on weather. Not surprisingly other researchers contend Knutson’s new computer models are flawed. Read the full story here.
Science in action
in Scientific World View, Scientific Inquiry, and The Water Cycle, Weather and Climate
Hurricanes and global warming: The debate over their connection continues.
Courtesy NASA
In 2005, Dr. Kerry Emmanuel, a climate scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, published a paper claiming there was a link between rising global temperatures and increases in hurricane strength.
This year, Dr. Emmanuel has published another paper in which he reconsiders the evidence. He found that the models used to predict hurricane activity were not matching up with what was happening in the real world. The link between hurricanes and global warming may not be as strong as originally suspected, or may not exist at all.
This is precisely how science is supposed to work – examining evidence, coming up with theories to explain the evidence, testing those theories, and adjusting the theories if necessary.
In another three years, Emmanual may write another paper showing that he was right the first time. Or that the whole hurricane-warming link is a dead end. Or perhaps some other conclusion. But the important thing is to keep looking, and to report honestly what you find.
As economist John Keynes famously said, “When the facts change, I change my mind.” A good approach to any debate.
Is the number of hurricanes rising, or are we just getting better at counting them?
Courtesy NASA
The 2007 hurricane season ends today, and by most accounts it was fairly typical, with 14 named storms and 5 hurricanes. But Neil Frank, former director of the National Hurricane Center, thinks those numbers are inflated. He argues that several of the named storms were not, in fact, strong enough to merit special designation.
According to the article, better storm-tracking technology has allowed scientists to identify and accurately measure weather events which, in years past, might not have merited “storm” designation, or might have been missed altogether.
Some people argue that this is an example of “climate change hype” – exaggerating the number of strong storms to make climate change look more severe than it actually is. Blogger Glenn Reynolds has perhaps a more charitable explanation: people in any profession want their field to seem important. If you’re in the hurricane business, then you get more attention – and more funding – if there are more hurricanes.
Earlier Buzz discussions of the 2007 Hurricane season can be found here and here.
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