Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Are We "Done" with the Tropics?

-- Jay Grymes & Steve Caparotta

 
Some of our tropical trivia buffs may be wondering, “What are the chances for more ‘named’ storms between mid-October and the close of the 2012 season?” Well, we did a little digging and here’s what we found:

First off, it’s important to remember that storm counts per year continue to run high compared to long-term averages. Some experts use long-term storm count averages based on seasons dating back to the early 1980s if no earlier, which includes a run of seasons with annual storm counts in the single digits. By contrast, there has been an average of 15 ‘named’ storms per season since 1995, generally considered the start of the current “active phase” of tropical cyclone development for the Atlantic Basin.

2012 is already well ahead of that average with 17 ‘named’ storms, thanks to Patty and Rafael. In fact, with more than six weeks left in the “official” season, 2012 already ranks among the top eight “busiest” seasons on record for the Atlantic! (Yep, so much for last may's pre-season expert forecasts!)

So, back to the original question: since the 1995 season (1995-2011, 17 seasons), we count 35 storms having been ‘named’ on or after October 16th. But admittedly, that includes 8 ‘late season’ (after Oct 15th) storms during the hyper-active 2005 season, when we had to dip into the Greek alphabet for names. 
 
Even if we remove the 2005 season from our simple analysis, we end up with 27 storms being ‘named’ after October 15th over 16 seasons (1995-2004, 2006-2011). That works out to roughly 1.7 storms per year, on average. And over all of the past 17 hurricane seasons, there have only been two seasons -- 2002 and 2006 -- with no storms ‘named’ after October 15th.

 

 
So, odds are, we could see one more, possibly even two more ‘named’ storms in the basin before we close the tropical books on 2012.

So then you might ask, “What are the chances for another ‘hit’ this season for the Bayou State?”

We can’t entirely rule out another landfall this season, but chances appear to be extremely low at this stage. Although Louisiana had ‘her’ one-and-only November ‘hit’ (more like a sideswipe) just a few years back with 2009’s Ida, history suggests that the western half of the Gulf of Mexico tends to become very inhospitable for tropical development around the start of November. Prior to Ida, 1985’s Juan is Louisiana’s only other recent “late season” landfall, pulling ‘his’ infamous pretzel-like loop-de-loop along the LA coast during the last week in October of that year.

In addition, while circumstances could change, upper-level winds over and near the Gulf have been somewhat active over the past few weeks. This may be a signal that the Gulf is “closed for business” for the remainder of the tropical season.

Or, at least, let’s hope so!



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