Mayfield: ‘2006 hurricane season CAN be worse than 2005’

With more than 55 million people living in coastal communities, the nation must learn its lesson from the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons and prepare now for what will happen after June 1, according to Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Mayfield emphasized his warning before federal, state and emergency officials in Orlando, Fla. attending the April 10-14 28th National Hurricane Conference. The conference brought together more than 2,000 federal, state and local officials, emergency managers, response, recovery and hazard mitigation professionals.

“We could say, the 2006 hurricane season can’t be worse than last year, but I’m here to convince you it can,” Mayfield said. “All it takes is one major storm to hit one community.”

Mayfield said the most vulnerable people during the next hurricane season will be 100,000 victims of previous hurricanes still living in temporary housing. He said it is urgent to avoid hurricane fatigue and motivate them to plan in advance where to seek safe shelter.

Mayfield cautioned that enough has not been mentioned about the destruction and deaths caused by the tornadoes accompanying the hurricanes. He said that it isn’t the hurricanes that account for the deaths; it’s the actions taken by victims after the hurricane has passed by.

No perfect forecast

“There is no such thing as a perfect forecast,” Mayfield explained. “There is a large envelope of water which can affect a wide area. Models only deal with over-topping.”

Mayfield said it is impossible to draw a “line in the sand” on wind versus water.

Global warming’s effects

A prediction that there will be 17 named storms that will make landfall during the 2006 hurricane season, and that the likelihood of such storms is “well above their long-range period averages,” was renewed by well-known Colorado State University meteorologist Prof. William M. Gray.

Gray held a press conference during which he introduced Philip J. Klotzbach, a long-time assistant at the University of Colorado, who he said will now be in charge of hurricane prediction activities. Gray has turned over many of his hurricane prediction activities to Klotzbach which will allow Gray to study global warming and cooling and their effects on weather patterns.

Gray outlined the effects of global warming, saying it has little, if any effect upon hurricanes. He described global warming as a normal process, in which the Earth goes through regular cooling and warming cycles.

Criticizes ‘doom and gloom’ media

Gray said in the 1980s, the media played up predictions of a return of an ice age.

He said that when that did not happen, they focused on global warming. He accused the press of grabbing any story that will obtain the public’s attention, paint a picture of gloom and doom, and sell newspapers.

“The way the Earth has been cooling and then heating is a common historical pattern,” Gray pointed out. He showed statistics going back into the 1930s, during which regular heating and cooling cycles were the norm, not the exception.

Gray affirms his predictions

Predictions indicating the 2006 hurricane season will maintain the precedents set in previous hurricane seasons were also enforced by Colorado State University meteorologist Professor William Gray, who reaffirmed his predictions there will be 17 named storms in 2006.

Gray and Klotzbach also said there is an 81 percent probability that a major category three, four or five hurricane will make landfall somewhere on the U.S. coastline. The average probability during the last century has been 52 percent.

The probability a hurricane hitting the U.S. East Coast, including Pensacola, is 64 percent, while the average during the last century has been 31 percent.

The probability of a hurricane hitting the Gulf Coast, from the Florida Panhandle west to Brownsville, Texas, is 47 percent; the average during the last century was 30 percent.

The team of experts has also predicted an “above average” possibility of a major hurricane landfall risk in the Caribbean.

Klotzbach estimates 2006 will have about nine hurricanes (average is 5.9), 17 named storms (average is 9.6), 85 named storm days (average is 49.1), 45 hurricane days (average is 24.5), 5 intense (Category 3-4-5) hurricanes (average is 2.3) and 13 intense hurricane days (average is 5.0).

The probability of U.S. major hurricane landfall probability is estimated at 55 percent above average. The scientists expect the Atlantic basin Net Tropical Cyclone activity in 2006 to be 195 percent of the average.

The April forecast is based on a newly devised extended range statistical forecast procedure which uses 52 years of past global reanalysis data and analog predictors.

Topics Catastrophe USA Natural Disasters Hurricane Climate Change Colorado