With all due respect to the weather forecasters at Colorado State University, predicting the number of hurricanes that are going to come our way is a lot like predicting how much snow will fall in Nebraska. Plug in all the numbers, and the data.. and it's still just an educated guess.
This latest forecast is an amended version of the forecast they release in early December. The experts have a habit of changing predictions as hurricane season draws closer. they are now predicting an above-average hurricane season for the Atlantic Ocean. As we reported: the forecast issued today is a slightly scaled-back version of the one released in early December.
Researchers now predict 16 named storms in the Atlantic, instead of 17. Nine of those storms are expected to turn into hurricanes, five of them major.
Forecasters say the combination of warm surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic combined with neutral surface temperatures in the Pacific will make for an active season. Really?
Back in 2007, they predicted 17 named storms, 9 hurricanes, 5 of them major. Those numbers were later scaled back. Then in 2008, once the season began, forecasters pulled back on their numbers from 16 named storms to 15.. and dropped the number of major hurricanes to 4. And these forecasts are rarely on the money.
Hurricanes happen. They are thorn in the side of living in this paradise we call the Gulf Coast. They are an unfortunate part of our culture. We prepare the best we can for the inevitable, but mother nature is fickle. She is, as the forecasters know very well, unpredictable.
When one of those deadly monsters is swirling in the gulf, it would be nice if forecasters could give us a better idea of where it is heading. They like to call it the "cone of uncertainty." Uncertainty is what hurricanes are all about.
Our meteorologists here at Local 15 don't predict the number of storms. Just like they don't predict the number of inches of rain we're going to get in a year. They do, however, do a wonderful job of keeping us aware of the impending possibility of danger. They are professional and take their responsibilities very seriously. In that, we can all feel a little bit better about the upcoming hurricane season.
