Colorado State University forecast calls for 'extremely active Atlantic hurricane season'
Colorado State University researchers are predicting an extremely active Atlantic hurricane season this year with 11 in their preliminary forecast released Thursday at the National Tropical Weather Conference.
That’s the highest number of predicted hurricanes the CSU tropical weather and climate research team has ever predicted in its April forecasts, which it has provided annually since 1995. The previous high for an April forecast by the team was nine multiple times, according to a summary of the report prepared by CSU's marketing and communications team.
The summary goes on to note that the April predictions historically contain the “lowest level of skill of CSU’s operational seasonal hurricane forecasts, given the considerable changes that can occur in the atmosphere-ocean between April and the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season from August-October.”
The CSU team plans to issue updates to the forecast June 11, July 9 and Aug. 6.
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This year’s forecast predicts 23 named storms in the Atlantic Ocean during the hurricane season June 1 through Nov. 30. That’s significantly more than the average of 14.4 over a 30-year period from 1991-2020.
The prediction of 11 storms that will become hurricanes is also higher than the 30-year average of 7.2. The CSU team predicts that five of those hurricanes will be major, reaching a Category 3, 4 or 5 level with sustained winds or 111 mph or greater, and it gives a 62% chance of at least one major hurricane hitting the U.S. coastline.
The primary factor in predicting a more active hurricane season this year than the 30-year average, the research team said, is record warm tropical and eastern subtropical Atlantic Ocean sea-surface temperatures.
“A very warm Atlantic favors an above-average season, since a hurricane’s fuel source is warm ocean water," the summary reads. “In addition, a warm Atlantic leads to lower atmospheric pressure and a more unstable atmosphere. Both conditions favor hurricanes.”
The report goes on to note that the current El Nino conditions in the Pacific Ocean are likely to transition to La Nina conditions by the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season from August to October, decreasing upper-level winds and reducing vertical wind shear, which favors hurricane formation and intensification in the Atlantic.
CSU’s season hurricane forecasts were developed by the late William Gray, a professor of atmospheric science at CSU from 1961 to 2005. He began issuing forecasts for hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean basin in 1984 through a statistical model that has been continually updated based on real-time data observed over the previous 30 years, the researchers said in the report. Four other models are also involved in the reports, according to the summary, using data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, the United Kingdom’s Met Office, the Japan Meteorological Agency and the Italian-based Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change.
The 2024 hurricane season is exhibiting characteristics similar to 1878, 1926, 1998, 2010 and 2020, the summary said. Each of those were “very active Atlantic hurricane seasons,” said lead author Phil Klotzbach, a senior research scientist in CSU’s Department of Atmospheric Science.
The team predicts 2024 hurricane activity will be about 170% of the average season from 1991-2020. The 2023 hurricane season was about 120% of the average season, the summary notes. The largest hurricane to make landfall in the United States in 2023 was Idalia, which was a Category 3 storm when it reached the Big Bend region of Florida, where it caused $3.6 billion in damage and killed eight people.
Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, x.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: CSU forecast calls for 'extremely active Atlantic hurricane season'
