Posted on 05/24/2006 12:48:06 PM PDT by OB1kNOb
On Tuesday, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the 2006 hurricane season was expected to produce 13 to 16 named storms, including four to six "major" hurricanes of Category 3 strength or higher. No leading forecasters came close to predicting what happened in 2005, when 28 tropical storms spawned a record 15 hurricanes.
The 2006 forecast for News Orleans was worse than Watson's prediction for the city last year, he said. But for now, he considers the 2005 season an aberration rather than a trend or a definitive sign of effects from global warming.
"If it happens again this year or next year, then we're in a different climate world than we were in the last 100 years or so," Watson said.
Of 28 coastal cities evaluated under the forecast model, New Orleans ranked top with a 29.3 percent chance of experiencing hurricane-force winds in the storm season that begins officially on June 1.
Other top candidates include Mobile, Alabama, with a 22 percent chance of being buffeted by hurricane-force winds, and the Florida cities of Key West and Pensacola, which both have a 20 percent chance.
(Excerpt) Read more at today.reuters.com ...
Sounds like Karl Rove has the hurricane machine targeted and ready.
Pinging you to ping others, please. - OB1
But I thought Karl Rove was going to reprogram the secret weather machine to aim the hurricanes further up the east coast this year.
Targeting New Orleans huh? Those bastards!
Yo! Reuters!
Hurricanes are not intelligent! They cannot "target" anything.
Wow, whodda thunk that cities on the gulf coast would be at the top of the hurricane list???
He was gonna, but he lost the remote. Probably behind the couch cushions, but ya can't tell Karl anything.
No...but the Wizard behind the curtain, Karl Rove can! LOL
This headline is pure unadulterated horse manure.
And until we belieeeeve Al Gore, every hurricane will zero right in on New Orleans until mankind has forgone his eeeeeevil SUVs.
This is a really stupid article demonstrating Reuters tendency to sensationalize. Hurricanes don't target anything...they meander over oceans, following a course of least resistance. Based on current ocean currents and wind patterns most experts have said that they expect the North East to see the brunt of this years land impacting storms...not New Orleans.
Well, someone's probably gonna guess right, or claim they did, come end of the season in November.
That's when I usually make my predictions.
Ya beat me to it...
Hurricanes are attracted to large numbers of yellow school buses parked in low ground.
so now inanimate storms are TARGETING US Cities!!
...sheesh! Logical thought is DEAD in this country!
You owe me a new monitor. Mine has coffee all over it now.
Someone has to say it...it's Bush's fault!
:)
Funny thing about the NHC forecast, it calls for more storms than were forecast last year. If the forecast to actual ratio holds true, more records will be broken in this year. It is a bummer when several series of cyclical changes all hit upswings at the same time.
So close to a year goes by. The taxpayers gave New Orleans billions of dollars. Have the levies been rebuilt to handle the storms?
I think we're still trying to figure out whether they are dragged by the top or pushed at the bottom.
1 landfall, Cape Hatteras August 21st.
If SUVs and guns can kill people, then hurricanes can "target" cities, okay? Get it together, will you?
That's an interesting prognostication, prof! ;-)
What does Poor Richard's Almanac have to say?
I want to borrow their magic prediction orb. I have some things I want to predict.
These guys work for the oil companies. They are following this seriously. 30% means 70% chance it won't happen of course. I am so glad that I am house hunting in WESTERN North Carolina this week-end. Time to get out of Louisiana.
I thought so too. But then I brainstormed on just how NOLA could be the top target, and came to the conclusion that
the vacuums inside voters' heads must be sucking storm systems to the area.
Excellent point. Also, I suspect this is a ploy to suck loads of cash into their pockets "just in case". They do need to stock up on Heineken ya know, in case of an emergency.
Thanks for the insight. I didn't know that. Good luck with the house hunting. Western N.C. is beautiful, Smoky Mtns, etc.
Can't predict 3 days out. How can they preidict months ahead.
Some of the best in the field, Dr. Klotzbach and Dr. Gray at Colorado State University, are on record predicting the probability of a major hurricane striking the U.S. East Coast in 2006 is more than twice the average probability for that coastline during the last 100 years.
Results are excerpted below from their forecast publication on April 4, 2006 titled Extended Range Forecast of Atlantic Seasonal Hurricane Activity and U.S. Landfall Strike Probability for 2006
PROBABILITIES FOR AT LEAST ONE MAJOR (CATEGORY 3-4-5) HURRICANE LANDFALL ON EACH OF THE FOLLOWING COASTAL AREAS:
1) Entire U.S. coastline - 81% (average for last century is 52%)
2) U.S. East Coast Including Peninsula Florida - 64% (average for last century is 31%)
3) Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle westward to Brownsville - 47% (average for last century is 30%)
4) Above-average major hurricane landfall risk in the Caribbean
"Funny thing about the NHC forecast, it calls for more storms than were forecast last year. "
That may be true, but the forecast is for fewer storms than actually materialized last year.
Just the other night, the "experts" were saying the east coast was more likely to be hit this year, than the gulf. Something about how the storms would start further east (towards Africa) than last year.
"Based on current ocean currents and wind patterns most experts have said that they expect the North East to see the brunt of this years land impacting storms...not New Orleans."
Exactly... I see you beat me to the punch. It still works for me!
Who is this "Watson" the article keeps referring to? They never ID'ed him or the "Johnson" they also reference later.
Can we assume it's the fictitious Dr. Watson and the writer's private parts who are making these predictions?
Yes, I see now that it's a conspiracy on someone's part (I don't blame Rove for this, he's no longer doing strategery) to kill me.
They have my newscasters telling me little or no hurricanes are going to *target* me this season on the upper TX Gulf coast. They tell me that the storms will go up the Atlantic seaboard, for the most part.
I'm starting to catch on. *They* are trying to make me complacent, so I will be killed. Oh, woe is me - I'm a target of a reverse psych-ops! I'll show them. I'll prepare ... maybe I'll just evacuate now.
Oh, hahahahahaha - that's a good one. Rebuilt levees. Ha hahahahaha.
ExxoNOAA? Sure they do. Miami is such an oil town.
Well, if at first you don't succeed...
Our part of the Gulf, off of Galveston, hit 80° two days ago. Bring 'em on!
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