2021 Atlantic Hurricane Season Running Thread

Hurricane forecast: Another above-normal season; 17 named storms

After the most ferocious hurricane season on record in 2020, top hurricane forecasters on Thursday said we should expect another active, above-normal season again this year.
For the season, which begins June 1, meteorologist Phil Klotzbach and other experts from Colorado State University – among the nation's top seasonal hurricane forecasters – predict 17 named tropical storms will form, eight of which will become hurricanes.
An average season has 12 tropical storms, six of which are hurricanes. In 2020, there were a whopping 30 named storms, 13 of which were hurricanes.
If the prediction holds true, it will be the sixth consecutive above-normal season.
Of the eight predicted hurricanes, four are expected to spin into major hurricanes – Category 3, 4 or 5 – with sustained wind speeds of 111 mph or greater. The group said there's a 69% chance for at least one major hurricane to make landfall somewhere along the U.S. coastline.

 

I always wondered how Colorado State became the go-to school for hurricane research. Did they decide these things were so terrifying that they wanted to be as far away as possible? And if so, why isn’t there an avalanche studies center at Florida International?

 

I'm right there with you. You'd think it would be Miami or East Carolina or someplace.

When I was in the Navy, they asked if I wanted to be stationed in Colorado. I said, "Uhhhh, I didn't join the Navy to be stationed underground in the Rockies."

 

By contrast the National Storm Prediction Center (the tornado forecast people) is at the University of Oklahoma. Talk about having a front row seat for the parade.

 

If it was located in Gainesville, all hurricanes would be rated on the Joules to Rain Total (JORT) scale.

 

It started with Gray. And his predictions are always funny because in the middle of the summer he would redo them just in case what he had originally forecast was wildly off.

 

Excellent question. I wondered the same thing. Especially for what I presume is a land-grant institution with a mission to serve the state.

 

Number of named storms this century: 15, 15, 12, 16, 15, 28, 10, 15, 16, 9, 19, 19, 19, 14, 8, 11, 15, 17, 15, 18, 30.
Average per season: 16

That's why they keep predicting "above-average" seasons every year. Because their baseline of average is from the 1990s, when the number was 11.

1983 was a real snoozer --- four storms. But thanks to Alicia, there was $3 billion in damage. The next year saw 13 storms . . . but only $229 million in damage.

1992, of course, saw only seven storms. But thanks to Andrew . . . $27.3 billion in damage.

 

If they are headed toward Onslow Bay, one is too many.

 

Gee, I wonder if the average is set by more numbers than the last 20 years.... Hmm