Hurricane Almanac 2006 The Essential Guide To Storms Past, Present, And Future

Chapter One Hurricanes Today The Hurricanes Return19952005 Hurricanes come in cycles. A casual glance at a list of active hurricane seasons shows clusters of activity in the 1880s1890s and 1920s1960s, while the early twentieth century and the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s look relatively calm. Another active period started in 1995 and continues today. Dramatic economic growth, immigration, increasing longevity, and other factors coincided with the hurricane downturn of the late 1960s to mid-1990s. The effect can be seen throughout the coastal zone. Would 18 million people be living in Florida today if hurricanes had continued coming at the rate they occurred in the late 1940s and in the last two years? I wonder. Unfortunately, the people in government with the responsibility for seeing that citizens are safe during disasters were (and are) not very good students of history. Most coastal areas, including the state of Florida, were developed without regard to the hurricanes of the past and without protection from the hurricanes to come. Thus, future disasters are guaranteed. Hurricane cycles correlate with the natural fluctuation in the temperature of the ocean. This chart compares the Atlantic Ocean water temperature to normal. The match with hurricane activity is remarkable. Notice that the late 1800s and the period from the late 1920s to the late 1960s show warmer than normal temperatures. They were active hurricane periods as well. The swing in temperature is only about plus or minus one degree Fahrenheit, but the amount of energy that slight difference makes spread out over the entire Atlantic Basin is significant. See "Global Warming and Hurricanes," page 74. Hurricane Season 2005 Every hurricane has its own personality, and every hurricane season does as well. Anytime there are a lot of landfalling storms, let alone a record-setting season like last year's, lessons aboundbig and small. In my opinion, the biggest lesson of the hurricane season of 2005 was: The worst does happen! In case after case people suffered and property was destroyed because someonea governmental body or official, a business owner or a private citizendecided to ignore hurricane history, ignore hurricane research, and hope for the best. Thus the lesson. Hoping does not hold back wind and water. The two most remarkable storms of 2005 were Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma. That's not to ignore or discount the effects of Dennis, Emily, Ophelia, Rita, Stan, Gamma, and the rest. In a normal hurricane season, any one of those storms would be memorable. But Katrina and Wilma rose above the pack in this extraordinary season of storms. An easy-to-forget aspect of the 2005 season is that none of the record-setting hurricanes formed in the deep tropics. Through history, most of the "great" hurricanes have formed well east of the Lesser Antilles. From there they have time to organize and gain strength. The fact that the traditional breeding ground for big, powerful hurricanes was not fertile in 2005, and yet fifteen hurricanes formed, gives us pause. See "Hurricane Season 2006," page 15. Researchers still haven't determined for sure why the deep tropics were shut off in 2005. A reasonable explanation might have to do with the "waviness" of the weather pattern around the earth. Rarely are all parts of the Atlantic Basin in a favorable mode for storm development at the same time. Normally, when one part is favorable, other parts are not. In 2005, however, the weather pattern in the Gulf of Mexico and the western Atlantic was ideal for strong storms from June to December. Perhaps the favorable areNorcross, Bryan is the author of 'Hurricane Almanac 2006 The Essential Guide To Storms Past, Present, And Future' with ISBN 9780312362973 and ISBN 0312362978.