Knight Ridder Newspapers

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – One of the nation’s top hurricane forecasters is calling for another active tropical storm season – except a little lighter than last year’s, when system after system pounded Florida and flooded western North Carolina.

Colorado State University’s William Gray, who is known for the accuracy of his forecasts, is predicting 13 named storms this year.

Seven will grow into hurricanes, he said, with three of those becoming intense storms of Category 3 or above. Gray issued his latest forecast Friday.

Last year, one of the most active in history, saw 15 tropical storms, with nine becoming hurricanes – six of them intense.

The yearly average since 1950 is 9.6 named storms, with 5.9 hurricanes and 2.3 intense storms.

Tropical storms are named when they reach wind speeds of 39 mph or more. They become hurricanes when their winds top 73 mph and are considered intense storms at 111 mph.

Atlantic hurricane season runs from June through November.

While Gray is usually near the mark, he was a little off last year – albeit on the low side.

He called for 13 named storms in 2004, with seven developing into hurricanes, three of them intense. He missed by two named storms, two hurricanes and three intense hurricanes.

What’s creating so many strong storms? Forecasters believe the world is in the midst of a decades-long cycle of increased hurricane activity, which began in the mid-1990s after about 30 years of relative calm.

More tropical storms have formed over the past 10 years than in any decade since the United States started keeping records in the 1870s.

This year is expected to be strong again because there’s no active El Nino in the Pacific Ocean, Gray says. In years when the warm-water phenomenon is strong, it helps create winds across the Atlantic that shear off the tops of hurricanes, robbing them of their punch.

Water temperatures in the north Atlantic are also expected to be warmer than usual this year, Gray says. Warm water is like jet fuel for hurricanes.

And a high-pressure system known as the Bermuda high – which can help steer hurricanes toward the East Coast or away from it, depending on its position – is likely to be in roughly the same place as last year, when all those storms took aim at Florida.

Gray says there’s a 73 percent chance that a major storm – Category 3 or above – will make landfall along the U.S. coastline this year. The average for the last century is 52 percent.

Last year, four hurricanes hit Florida – a modern-day record for a single state that experts say is unlikely to be matched any time soon.

Fifty-nine U.S. deaths and about 3,000 in Haiti were directly attributed to tropical weather last season. Many of those fatalities occurred well inland, in central Florida, rural North Carolina and elsewhere.

While the Carolinas’ coastline largely escaped pounding, the season brought seven named tropical systems through North Carolina.

Most traveled the inland route, coming up through Florida and the Gulf states to soak the mountains. Fourteen N.C. residents died in the resulting floods and landslides, which caused at least $200 million in damage.

North Carolina is considered particularly vulnerable to hurricanes because of the way it juts out into the Atlantic Ocean, like a chin waiting to be punched by a boxer.

Since 1900, North Carolina has been hit by 29 hurricanes. Only Florida, with 64, and Texas, with 38, have seen more.

South Carolina has had 16 hurricanes in that time period.

The official National Hurricane Center forecast for this season won’t come until May 16, but Gray’s predictions are usually close to the government version.

While Gray’s picks were a little low last year, he was dead right about one thing.

For each of the past few years, when issuing his seasonal forecast, he has included the same warning: We’ve been lucky that more strong storms haven’t hit the East Coast over the last decade. It won’t last, he said.

As last year showed, it didn’t.

Copy the Story Link