You know It’s Hurricane Season When…
We’re almost two months into the official hurricane season, which runs from June 1st to November 30th, and so far, we’ve had only two named storms. Given the various predictions for between 13 and 17 named storms, it may seem to some that we’re not going to make it.
Keep in mind that the strongest part of the hurricane season is from mid-August to mid-October, when the Atlantic Ocean is at its warmest. With the exception of 2005 and 2003, when we had seven storms by the end of July, for the past ten years, we’ve seen two tropical storms each year before August 1st, except for 1998 and 2004, when there weren’t any storms at all in the first two months of the season, so we’re on schedule.
The approach of the strongest part of the hurricane season brings a reminder from the Georgia State Climatologist David Stooksbury that Georgia could be severely impacted should a Katrina-like storm hit the coast. In an article posted yesterday on the Georgia FACES website, Stooksbury reports that UGA students created a model of the storm surge from Hurricane Katrina, and then projected it along the Georgia coast, where it would cause a 20-30 foot storm surge.
“A storm surge of this magnitude would wash over the barrier islands and lead to massive flooding along the coast. Almost all of Georgia east of I-95 will be under water with a category 3 hurricane. Areas west of I-95 will see major flooding, too.”
The article also explodes some Georgia hurricane myths, and offers advice on preparedness.
Next week brings updates to the hurricane forecasts by the National Weather Service and Dr. Gray’s team over at Colorado State University, and it will be interesting to see what changes, if any, we see in the predictions.
Dr. Gray has written an op-ed article for this morning’s Wall Street Journal examining if the increases we’ve seen in the intensity of hurricanes recently is being caused by global warming. He compares two long term periods from the early 20th century and late 20th/early 21st, and concludes that the number of landfalling hurricanes in the US declined, despite the increase in carbon dioxide in the air.
Instead of following the politically correct line on global warming, Dr. Gray analyzes the patterns of ocean currents and salinity in the Atlantic over time, and concludes,
“The warming theorists — most of whom, no doubt, earnestly believe that human activity has triggered nature’s wrath — have the ears of the news media. But there is another plausible explanation, supported by decades of physical observation. The spate of recent destructive hurricanes may have little or nothing to do with greenhouse gases and climate change, and everything to do with the Atlantic Ocean’s currents.”
If you’re not a Wall Street Journal Online subscriber, you can read the article via Google News. Click this link, and choose the article “Hurricanes and Hot Air”.
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