So far, the 2015 season is exhibiting characteristics similar to the 1965, 1972, 1982, 1987 and 1997 hurricane seasons, all of which had below-normal activity, said Phil Klotzbach, lead author of the report.
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The final “preseason” forecast from top experts at Colorado State University, released Tuesday, again calls for a “well below-average hurricane season for the Atlantic basin in 2015”, researchers said.
A total of 8 named tropical storms are forecast to form, of which two or three should be hurricanes.
The first, Ana, came ashore on the South Carolina coast on May 10 as a tropical storm with 45 miles per hour winds.
Last July, post-tropical storm Arthur battered the Maritimes, knocking out power to more than 290,000 homes and businesses on July 5.
A strong El Niño as well as “continued unfavorable hurricane formation conditions in the tropical Atlantic” are the main culprits behind the below-average forecast for the season, which runs from June 1 to November 30. Two are expected to become hurricanes, with one predicted to reach major strength as Category 3, 4 or 5, according to the school’s Tropical Meteorology Project. They continue to predict one of the hurricanes will be major, but now call for only a 12 percent chance of a major storm striking the U.S. East Coast – down from 15 percent in their earlier outlook. El Niño, a climate pattern that affects weather worldwide, “is characterized by unusually warm temperatures” in the tropical Pacific, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That’s compared with the average of 12 named storms, 6.5 hurricanes, two of them major.
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The site provides information for all coastal states as well as 11 regions and 205 individual counties along the U.S. coastline from Brownsville, Texas, to Eastport, Maine. Hence it’s important to keep abreast of the latest outlook from the likes of Colorado State. No tropical cyclones are now present in the tropical Atlantic. This system is unlikely to develop, and none of the reliable forecast model guidance develops any other tropical cyclones in the Atlantic during the next five days. As we move through August things begin to change in the development region of the tropics.
