Although hurricane experts forecasted a less-than-active storm season, a presidential visit brought more than enough excitement to the National Hurricane Center the day federal climate scientists released their annual outlook.
Forecasters said they expect the season, which officially started on June 1, to produce six to 11 named storms, with three to six becoming hurricanes. Of those, they predict that up to two could become major storms packing winds of at least 111 mph. Forecasters have no way of telling in advance where – or if – any of those storms might make landfall.
“There’s no reason to doubt the forecast,” said Hugh Willoughby, distinguished research professor in the University’s Department of Earth & Environment.
Willoughby, a 27-year veteran of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration before he joined the University, said to Student Media that an El Nino was on its way, but that was a good sign to weather and climate scientists.
He said scientists consider whether El Nino is in or out when making predictions, and a big nino is a possible sign that South Floridian will avoid a storm. But Willoughby still advised wary weather watchers to be cautious.
“It only takes one storm to ruin your summer,” he said. “Hurricane Andrew was an El Nino year.”
For 2015, forecasters based their prediction in large part on warming waters in the Pacific caused by an El Niño weather pattern. The El Niño should limit hurricanes from forming during the peak months of the season in August, September and October, said Gerry Bell, NOAA’s lead forecaster.
Willoughby, who was director of NOAA for six years while there, said shear is the biggest factor that determines a hurricane’s strength. A lot of shear, he said, is bad for hurricanes.
He added, however, that a warmer globe makes predicting storms harder to do.
“The stronger ones get stronger,” Willoughby said. “But there are fewer in total”
Back at the NHC, President Barack Obama toured the center on June 1 to to receive the annual outlook and raise awareness about the 2015 hurricane season on his second trip to Miami within as many months. The president was at the Modesto Maidique Campus for a town hall meeting focused on immigration which took place in February.
The NHC shares a location with the Miami National Weather Service Forecast Office near the Modesto A. Maidique Campus. Obama toured the agency’s facilities on May 28 urging the public to prepare for a natural disaster should a storm make landfall.
If Florida dodges a hurricane in 2015, it will mark the 10th season without a storm, a lucky streak that officials warn may not last. The 2014 season churned up eight named storms. Six became hurricanes. Only one, Gonzalo, grew to a Category 4 storm – the first in the Atlantic since 2011 – but it remained far from the U.S. coast. The production hewed closely to the preseason forecast, which projected eight to 13 storms and just one or two major hurricanes.
Since 2008, Bell said, NOAA forecasters have accurately predicted five of six seasons. And while scientists can’t tell in advance whether a storm will make landfall, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami have become far more accurate in predicting a storm’s path once it forms, Sullivan said.
Scientists at the center presented Obama with the annual hurricane season briefing in the thick-walled concrete bunker made to withstand heavy weather. The center, which is responsible for tracking and predicting weather systems, moved to its current location, which is near MMC, in 1995.
“The best climate scientists in the world are telling us that extreme weather events like hurricanes are likely to become more powerful,” Obama said.
The president also added why South Florida in particular is danger when it comes to unpredictable weather and a world that could be different because of climate change.
“When you combine stronger storms with rising seas, that’s a recipe for more devastating floods,” he said.
Additional reporting from Philippe Buteau and McClatchy Tribune news wires.
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