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2008 Hurricane Predictions (Forecasts, Guesses???)

April 11, 2008

With six weeks to go before the dreaded “H word” returns to the Weather Channel, one team of forecasters released its long-range prediction for the six-month Atlantic hurricane season.

And here we go again: another year…another fear. Gray’s team in Colorado is at it again. Doomsday is looming, they say and the press jumps on the news as if Gray and his team have ever been on the dot over the past 20 years.

It’s pretty much luck of the draw in my opinion. Over the past 22 years I have learned a lot about hurricanes, simply by living in the endangered tropical zones. Consequently I have been through a few and witnessed the aftermath of others. Hurricanes are no fun. Hugo destroyed me while living in St.Croix in 1989. I witnessed Andrew’s power, took a beating from Luis on St.Maarten in 1995, followed by a session of three consecutive ones in 1999 which closed up a very late season with a freak of nature called “Lenny”.

No….they’re not fun. But as with most things in life, you learn to prepare and go through it. What I noticed however is that “scientists” seem to be on the payroll of insurance companies, because insuring a house in a hurricane prone zone has become unaffordable.

And the process goes like this; first insurance companies announce that they will not insure hurricane losses anymore. Than the governments step in, first begging, than demanding. Someone needs to insure those poor people that might loose their life savings when another bad one blows in. “Reluctantly” the insurance companies give in but only if the home-owners are willing to pay much higher premiums. Consequently, here in Fernandina Beach North Florida, a home-owner pays easily $5,000 per year for a middle of the road home with a large deductible to boot.

Now guess what? No one can remember when the last hurricane - if ever - hit. Now there is a popular explanation why no hurricane seems to have hit us directly, it’s called the Gulfstream. It’s current is warmer than regular ocean water and it’s a couple of hundred miles out of our coastline. Do you think insurance premiums take that into consideration. Hell no. Luck of the draw….that’s what it is. Remember the tiny island of St.Maarten/St.Martin is only a 37 square mile speck in a big ocean. The chances for a direct hit should be measured accordingly.

But anyway the scientists have spoken and we will all be properly fearful, yet prepared. Here is their explanation!

Rising water temperatures in the Atlantic will bring an “above-average season” of 15 named storms, eight of which will become hurricanes, according to Colorado State University scientists Philip Klotzback and William Gray. Four will become major hurricanes, they said.

And that’s not all the bad news. The forecasters said that there is a better-than-average chance that at least one major hurricane will hit the U.S.

Although last year’s forecast by the Colorado team was way off (there was far less storm activity than predicted), Klotzbach said that “busted forecasts drive us to explain the reason for the failure. It’s the nature of seasonal forecasting to sometimes be wrong.”

The National Hurricane Center’s seasonal outlook will be released in late May.

Written by admin · Filed Under Weather 

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