Posted on 06/03/2015 11:05:07 AM PDT by nickcarraway
“I guarantee you that remarkable streak is going to end,” says a National Hurricane Center spokesman as hurricane season gets underway.
The last time Florida faced down a hurricane's full wrath was a decade ago.
Since then the state has grown by at least 2.5 million people. Many newcomers may be unprepared for the punishing winds and surges of water that come with a direct hit, and not used to boarding up their windows or evacuating their homes.
That worries professional hurricane watchers.
“There are going to be people who have moved to the state and don’t know what to do, how well to prepare for a hurricane,” said David Nolan, the chairman of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.
Others who experienced a hurricane may have forgotten how to prepare for one or become complacent, he said.
The last hurricane to hit Florida was Wilma in 2005. It killed 25 people, left most of South Florida without power and cut a broad swath of damage in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.
The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the most destructive for the United States, largely because of Hurricane Katrina two months earlier, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA. Katrina alone caused $151 billion in damage and killed 1,833. In all, seven named storms made landfall in the United States during 2005, and eight the year before. Below-Normal Atlantic Hurricane Season LikelyBelow-Normal Atlantic Hurricane Season LikelyChief Meteorologist John Morales has the latest on NOAA'S prediction of a below-normal Atlantic Hurricane season, with between three to six hurricanes is likely for 2015. (Published Wednesday, May 27, 2015) Why was there a flurry of storms in Florida and then none?
“I don’t think anyone can give a specific answer to that,” Nolan said. “Hurricane activity has been reduced a lot in the last 10 years.” In addition, in the last few years, the jet stream has dipped over the East Coast, bringing cold and stormy winters — a weather pattern that can draw storms such as Sandy up to the Northeast and away from Florida, he said.
Hurricanes are very unusual, so 10 years without one is not that odd, he said. Florida had a long period of little hurricane activity in the 1970s and 1980s until Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992, destroying homes and downing power lines from Fort Lauderdale to the Florida Keys. Five thousand people were left homeless.
Elliott Stares, 42, is among the newcomers to Florida. Originally from the United Kingdom, the public relations consultant with his own firm moved to South Beach 14 years ago. He and his wife are creating a "go bag" for an emergency evacuation from their Miami neighborhood.
"Since I've been here, I've been lucky enough not to experience a direct hit like Andrew," said Stares, who became a citizen in March. If an evacuation is mandatory and there is enough time, they would try to reach his wife's parents in Dallas, he said.
The condominium complex where he lives has hurricane-proof windows so he feels it is "pretty well battened" for a mild storm.
"But anything from 3 and above, based on the authorities' advice on evacuating, then we would oblige," he said.
The number of hurricanes predicted for the 2015 Atlantic season, which begins on June 1 and runs until Nov. 30, will likely be below normal, NOAA has said. El Nino, the warming of the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean, will be the main factor in suppressing storms.
But officials cautioned that a below-normal season can still be devastating and pointed to 1992, when only seven named storms formed but the first was Andrew, a Category 5 hurricane. Category 5 storms — the most powerful classification — have sustained wind speeds on 157 miles per hour or more and cause catastrophic damage. Because of Andrew, Miami-Dade County has some of the toughest building codes in the country, particularly for wind, said Brian Haus, professor of Ocean Sciences at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School. But the state’s housing is a mix of old and new, and many of the coastal areas were built before there were strong storm surge codes, he said.
“So many coastal buildings in the older areas are not elevated,” he said. “They need to be.”
Late last year, the school opened a new research complex that includes a hurricane wind-wave tank that can generate Category 5 hurricane-force winds. Researchers are trying to get better data on the effects of wind and water surges, not only on individual buildings but on neighboring structures as well. Driven by intense winds, the seawater exerts extreme force on buildings, he said.
Starting this hurricane season, the National Hurricane Center will introduce a new graphic specifically for storm surges in addition to one for wind speeds. The center will issue separate storm surge watches and warnings separate from the hurricane watches and warnings it has traditionally broadcast. A watch is defined as the possibility of life-threatening flooding within 48 hours; a warning, within 36 hours.
The graphic complements a potential storm surge flooding map, released during Hurricane Arthur last year, which shows where inundation could occur and how high above group the water could potentially reach.
A surge of seawater is often the greatest threat. It can occur at different times and places than a hurricane’s winds and well inland from the coast and might require evacuation.
Hurricane Ike — which devastated the Bolivar Peninsula of Texas and caused widespread damage in other areas of southeastern Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas in 2008 — was the impetus for the emphasis on storm surges, said Jamie Rhome, the leader of the National Hurricane Center’s Storm Surge Unit.
More recently Hurricane Sandy focused the public’s attention on the damage that could result. Though only a Category 1 when it made landfall in southern New Jersey in 2012, with sustained winds of 74 to 95 miles per hour, Sandy was a massive storm that did $67 billion in damage from flooding, according to NOAA. The storm surge — the rising seawater that results from wind and changes in atmospheric pressure — pushed water inland.
Recent research shows that storm surges are the primary killers during hurricanes, but polling indicates that the public believes otherwise, Rhome said. “People really only think wind when they hear hurricane, they’re primarily focused on wind, yet it’s water that’s resulting in the largest loss of life,” he said. “That disconnect is what we’re really seeking to tackle with these new maps.”
As far as Florida’s hurricane-free streak?
“I guarantee you that remarkable streak is going to end,” said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the National Hurricane Center in Miami. “And we have to go into 2015 assuming that it’s going to end this year.”
The Warministas are apparently feeling lucky this year...
Wasn’t there a hurricane in 2012 that delayed the Convention? I think Irene was the name.
good Lord. imagine they are hoping for hurricanes? the worse the better? I hate them.
Magic 8 ball says, “It’s possible.”
The odds are about the same this year as they have been for the last ten.
Hurricane Issac never made landfall in Florida.
> A surge of seawater is often the greatest threat.
Depends on where. Not as great a threat on the Atlantic side of Florida as in the Gulf of Mexico.
I suspect hurricanes have been hitting Florida since the time of the dinosaurs. I wasn’t around back then, but I’m confident that hurricanes have been around for two, maybe even three centuries.
I just wish he'd tell his boss about the streak, since he's been running his mouth about how all the recent awful hurricanes are caused by globull warming.
Apparently, we also have to go into 2015 [hurricane season] assuming that alarmist ass-hats are once again going to try to create mass panic.
This is impossible because Global Warming causes MORE and MORE DESTRUCTIVE hurricanes.
AlGore told me so.
“Hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones have always bedeviled
coasts, but global warming may be making matters worse.”
“Ten Years Without a Hurricane Hit”
Is Rush’s southern command ready ?
My Mark: 09/18-19/2015, between Jupiter and Palm Beach. for first one to US landfall!
Exactly. And if it doesn’t happen, it is still a crisis that needs funding to prepare for.
I've replaced all 47 windows and doors with "impact" windows/doors, and I'm in the middle of adding an attached building (which will serve as a photo studio, and another guest quarters). The addition is rated for 160 MPH sustained winds (vs. 120 MPH which was the previous version of building codes). The number of straps and tie downs on the trusses and things is pretty impressive.
If/when a hurricane comes by the addition will be my sanctuary (unless I bug out to some inland hotel or something).
/johnny
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