Late-starting hurricane seasons
Late-starting hurricane seasons--ones where the first named storm of the year doesn't occur until August--have happened in eleven of the fifty years between 1960 - 2009 (a 22% occurrence.) Only two of these eleven seasons ended up with more hurricanes than average (seven or greater). The record for the latest starting hurricane season since 1851 was set in 1914, when the only storm of the season formed on September 15. The year 1941 was also late starting, with the season's first storm arriving on September 11. Of course, we didn't have satellites back then, so it's a good bet there were storms earlier in these seasons that got missed. However, there's a good possibility that 1914 really did have only one storm. A re-analysis of the hurricane activity in the decade 1911-1920 (Landsea et al., 2008) found 1.3 missing tropical cyclones per year, thanks to the inclusion of a new database of ship weather reports called COADS. However, 1914 was not one of those years. Various authors have estimated that we missed an average of between one and three tropical cyclones per year during that time period, so it is quite possible 1914 had only one storm.
Figure 1. The hurricane season of 1914 featured only one tropical storm, and was the latest-starting hurricane season on record (September 15).
The latest dates for the first named storm of the season in the recent past, followed by the number of named storms, hurricanes, and intense hurricanes that year are:
2009 (August 15) 9,3,2
2004 (August 1) 15,9,6
2000 (August 4) 15,8,3
1988 (August 7) 12,6,3
1987 (August 9) 7,3,1
1984 (August 18) 13,5,1
1983 (August 15) 4,2,1
1977 (August 30) 6,5,1
1967 (August 30) 8,6,2
1963 (August 2) 9,6,2
1962 (August 22) 5,3,1
We can also add 1992 to the list if we ignore the unnamed subtropical storm that formed in April of that year. That year had the notorious Hurricane Andrew as its first named storm. Andrew formed on August 17 of that year, and was the only major hurricane in a year that had only seven named storms and four hurricanes. For comparison, an average Atlantic hurricane season has 10 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 2 intense hurricanes. So, it is a good bet that 2009 will be a below-average season.
References
Landsea, C. W. , D. A. Glenn, W. Bredemeyer, M. Chenoweth, R. Ellis J. Gamache, L. Hufstetler, C. Mock, R. Perez, R. Prieto, J. Sanchez-Sesma, D. Thomas, and L. Woolcock, 2008, A Reanalysis of the 1911-20 Atlantic Hurricane Database", Journal of Climate, 21, p.2138-2168.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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TROPICAL DEPRESSION 06E 18:00UTC 30July2009
UW-CIMSS Experimental Vertical Shear and TC Intensity Trend Estimates
Current Conditions (from TPC) :
Latitude : 12:04:42 N
Longitude : 140:28:54 W
Intensity (MSLP) : 1009.0 hPa
Max Pot Int (MPI,from Emanuel) : 939.1 hPa
MPI differential (MSLP-MPI) : 69.9 hPa
CIMSS Vertical Shear Magnitude : 7.0 m/s
Direction : 181.0 deg
Outlook for TC Intensification Based on Current
Env. Shear Values and MPI Differential
Forecast Interval : 6hr 12hr 18hr 24hr
F F F F
Legend : VF-Very Favorable F-Favorable N-Neutral
U-Unfavorable VU-Very Unfavorable
-- Mean Intensity Trend (negative indicates TC deepening) --
6hr 12hr 18hr 24hr
VF <-3.0mb/ 6hr <-6.0mb/12hr <-9.0mb/18hr <-12.0mb/24hr
F -3.0 - -1.0 -6.0 - -2.0 -9.0 - -3.0 -12.0 - -4.0
N -1.0 - +1.0 -2.0 - +2.0 -3.0 - +3.0 -4.0 - +4.0
U +1.0 - +3.0 +2.0 - +6.0 +3.0 - +9.0 +4.0 -+12.0
VU >+3.0 >+6.0 >+9.0 >+12.0
Professor Chicklit are you so sure it will run into that wall of shear your referring too...hum...
Shear Forecast Loop
No model develops it so no one cares lol
Here is something I worked on for about a couple hours. It is any good at all for anyone?
LOL i hear ya. As i said earlier....lets see in 24hrs if its still around. Then models might pick up something if its still hanging around after 24!
CIMSS
Here ya go jeffs
Exactly.
Professor Chicklit are you so sure it will run into that wall of shear your referring too...hum...
No Sir/Ma'am I'm not. But according to the shear map posted, there is first a line of 20k, then 30k, then 40 knots of shear in the Caribbean. I said in an earlier post that in other years "we would have been all over" that wave. The NHC doesn't even have it on yellow alert (as posted above). So I'm not making this stuff up. I even said, "not prognosticating, just publishing." BTW, I'm an English Lit/Composition person, not a scientist, and profess to know nothing about the scientific aspects of climatology, cyclogenesis, and meteorology.
Stay or Go
You need to decide now whether your home is a smart place to stay.
Despite the tremendous building damage caused by Hurricane Andrew, only six people out of more than 500,000 in the storm's main strike area lost their lives in their homes.
Once the storm arrives, stay calm. If you need to move to another interior room, choose a bathroom, closet or stairwell. If necessary, cover yourself with a mattress.
Best choice for most South Floridians: Stay home. Here's why: If a major storm threatens South Florida, it could take up to 99 hours to get everyone out, studies show. That's more than four days for perhaps millions of evacuees from Miami-Dade and Broward counties to funnel through Palm Beach County and northward, but authorities typically don't know a storm's power or direction that far ahead of time. Four days before landfall, Hurricane Andrew was an ill-defined, weak storm far out at sea. Emergency managers don't want motorists stalled in bumper-to-bumper traffic as the hurricane comes ashore. Bear in mind also, a predicted strike on PB County of a Cat. 4 or 5 hurricane would require the entire county of Okeechobee to evacuate, adding that many more cars to the road.
Of course, you should not stay home if you live in an evacuation area.
If you stay home: Make sure your home is as reinforced as possible. Consider the condition of your house and whether you and your family are healthy enough. If you stay with friends or relatives: Make arrangements far in advance. Check again as the hurricane approaches to make sure your hosts aren't on vacation or renovating. Then take the same things that you'd take to an emergency shelter.
In all honestly iam really not sure what this year holds in terms of tc developement, conditions out there are just not conducive for development.This is not an easy year to "analog" IMO due to some of the unique things we have going on, but I still suspect a 2006 type year is probably the best comparison as far as recent years are concerned. We had decent SSTs and heat content back then too, but the nino pattern really put a lid on the season's potential. Another year that may be similar is 1958, even though the nino had already been established in 1957 and was weakening as 1958 went along. It still seemed to have some limiting effects in looking at the pattern, and also was in a period where the overall AMO was declining. It had about the same number of storms as 2006, but was more interesting along the east coast than 2006 was.
Essentially we have a building El Nino, but not one that is out of control, and temperatures in the Atlantic development region have recently warmed slightly above normal. So it is not a crazy hostile situation but one that favors, in my opinion, slightly below normal activity.
Muchas Gracias.
Thats what I meant about the upper-level divergence.
LOL
Nah i have not checked that out yet,but what i do see is another plume of sal about to smack the tropical wave that just rolled of africa.Regardless its pretty high in latitude so recurve is pretty likely if it were to develope.
Models are a "best guess" guideline. Hardly a rule. They've been wrong many times, but they have also been right many times. (they do show some skill in predicting some things, like synoptic features)
cmon, you GOTTA know the answer to that. you think he's gonna say "no, don't pay any attention"???
Yep. The eastern blob has less 850mb vort. The 700mb vort is very weak, and there is nothing at 500mb or 200mb.
Very much so... southeast florida has been smacked a few times during very slow seasons and honestly these type of seasons are the ones that have my attention.
beat me to it.
Exactly. This past week we have have a pattern favorable for east coast hits and it looks to be changing to a more troughy pattern.
That's what I referred to.
You got that right.
StormW there is some Convergence going on....and i think you ment Westerlies
Did you read post 1116?
Navy site has it as a 40mph storm
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