The season will be ‘extraordinary’, according to forecasters
The Emergence of Tropical Hurricanes: Flooding, Flooding and Flooding in the Presence of a Tropical Storm and a Category 5 Hurricane
Rising temperatures with climate change are another risk factor. Global warming has made hurricanes stronger, drawing strength from the heat energy at the sea surface. There has been a record high water temperature in the tropical Atlantic recently, and this heat is expected to last into the peak months of the Atlantic hurricane season.
The administrator of the NationalHurricane Center says this season is likely to be an exceptional one.
Even relatively weak storms can cause catastrophic flooding, and the vast majority of hurricane-related deaths are from flooding, storm surge and other water hazards, warns National Weather Service director Ken Graham. Florence was just a Category 1 storm, but it was still a great storm and it flooded the area. Hurricane Harvey was similarly weak when it stalled over the Houston region in 2017, causing massive flood damage.
People in hurricanes’ path should know how to evacuate and get to their home in the event of a storm, forecasters and emergency managers stress.
Those high temperatures also allow storms to intensify rapidly, which gives communities less time to prepare for their impact. All of the strongest storms, Category 5 hurricanes, to make landfall in the US over the past 100 years in the US were much weaker tropical storms or less just three days prior, with an average lead time of just 50 hours.
NOAA Predictions of the Most Associated Storms, Hurricanes, and Major Hurricanes Over the Last 20 Years: The Largest Season of NOAA Forecasts
Reductions in air pollution, recent volcanic eruptions and patterns of dust blowing off the Sahara desert could all be playing a role because tiny particles of pollution, ash and dust all affect how much of the sun’s heat is reflected in the atmosphere before it reaches the Earth’s surface, he says. Many scientists around the world are working to understand the effects on ocean temperatures.
“The warming that we’ve been seeing in the North Atlantic over the last year has made people kind of lift their eyebrows a little bit and go, ‘Huh! What’s going on there? Schmidt says that’s true.
Ken Graham is the director of the National Weather Service. I said this time they didn’t care about our timelines. Preparedness is absolutely everything.”
Those are big numbers — the most named storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes NOAA has ever predicted in its May outlook. For comparison, there was an average of 14.4 named storms, 7.2 hurricanes, and 3.2 major hurricanes per season between 1991 and 2020.
NOAA also estimates the Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) for the season, a measure of overall storm activity. This year, it’s forecasting the second-highest ACE score it’s ever announced during its May outlook.
Flooding and flooding in the presence of a tropical storm and a Category 5 hurricane has made hurricanes stronger, drawing strength from heat energy at sea surface, National Weather Service (NWS) director Ken Graham said. He added that there has been record high water temperature in the tropical Atlantic recently and this heat is expected to last into peak months of the Atlantic hurricane season.