NOAA Updates Hurricane Forecast, Releases July Stats
In a flurry of press releases, NOAA provided its annual update to the May Hurricane forecast, and released the temperature and rainfall statistics for July.
For the current hurricane season, the NWS dropped its total predicted number of storms and major hurricanes by 1. So instead of 13-16 tropical storms, we can now expect 12-15; instead of 8-10 hurricanes, we can expect 7-9, out of which 3-4 are likely to be major.
The change was made primarily because of lower than predicted sea surface tempertures, which are still above normal, but not quite as much as predicted (or what we had last year). They are still predicting a 75% chance of an above normal hurricane season, and only a 5% chance of a below normal year. Last year, we had seven named storms by early August, while this year there have only been three, although the heart of the season is yet to come.
Meanwhile the July 2006 temperature and rainfall rankings for each state have been released, and are shown below.
Overall, July was the second-warmest ever nationwide, with an average temperature of 77.2. The only warmer July was in 1936. In Georgia, it was the 90th warmest July ever, above normal, but not excessively so. It was however excessively dry in Georgia - the seventh dryest July ever. The weather service also reported that the average temperature during the period from January-June, 2006 was the warmest recorded since recordkeeping began.
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