The hurricane season will be influenced by the waning of El Niño, a climate phenomenon that typically suppresses hurricane activity, according to the report by meteorologists Philip J. Klotzbach and William M. Gray of Colorado State University. It becomes a hurricane when winds reach 74 miles per hour.
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Phil Klotzbach is predicting a near-average hurricane season in 2016 in the Atlantic basin, which begins on June 1st. By comparison, 2015’s hurricane activity was about 65 percent of the average season.
Gray’s team was the first organization to issue seasonal hurricane forecasts back in 1984.
The team bases its forecasts on over 60 years of historical data that include Atlantic sea surface temperatures, sea level pressures, vertical wind shear levels (the change in wind direction and speed with height in the atmosphere), El Niño (warming of waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific), and other factors. Five of them will be hurricanes, he predicts, two of them “major” storms of Category 3, 4 or 5 intensity on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.
Insurance companies, emergency managers and the media use the forecasts to prepare Americans for the year’s hurricane threat.
“As is the case with all hurricane seasons, coastal residents are reminded that it only takes one hurricane making landfall to make it an active season for them”. The experts at Colorado State University have issued their forecast for the upcoming season, which starts June 1 and runs through November 30.
For the USA coastline, Klotzbach said there is a 50% chance of a major hurricane making landfall in 2016. The forecast predicted that three named storms would make landfall in the U.S. The chance along the Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle to Brownsville, Texas, is 29%.
AccuWeather, in its hurricane forecast released last week, predicted 14 named storms would form, of which 8 will be hurricanes.
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Besides CSU, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also puts out a hurricane season prediction each year.
