Spring Break
CSU hurricane forcast team predicts average season for 2009
Stephen Lin
Issue date: 4/24/09 Section: News
While they cannot pinpoint the occurrence of individual storms, the CSU Tropical Meteorology Project team predicts an average hurricane season with 12 named storms forming in the Atlantic basin between June 1 and Nov. 30.
Six of these storms could become hurricanes, and two have the potential to become intense or major hurricanes, a Category 3, 4 or 5 under the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, which is used to classify tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean.
"As best as we can tell now, we're in for an average season," said TMP member and CSU Professor William Gray, who has been predicting hurricanes for 26 years.
Hurricanes in these three categories attain wind speeds of 111 mph or greater, said Gray and Phil Klotzbach, lead forecaster, both of whom have spent years honing their skills in order to accurately predict the upcoming hurricane season.
The Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory said on their Web site that storms are given names to provide an ease of communication between forecasters and the public.
AOML also stated that the terms hurricane and typhoon are region-specific names for strong tropical cyclones. Typhoons refer to the northwest Pacific Ocean west of the dateline, while hurricane refers to the North Atlantic Ocean and northeast Pacific Ocean east of the dateline.
Klotzbach warned at looking at the recent prognostications as certainties.
"When you look at the forecast, it's a guideline," he cautioned.
The team's forecast calculates:
A 54 percent chance that a major hurricane will make landfall on the U.S.
A 32 percent chance that a major hurricane will strike the east coast, including Florida, and
A 31 percent chance that a hurricane will hit the Gulf Coast, from Florida's panhandle to Brownsville, Texas.
Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana as a Category 3 in 2005, claiming about 1,500 lives. With this, it earned the title of the third deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S., behind the 1990 Galveston Hurricane, which killed about 8,000 people and the 1928 Lake Okeechobee Hurricane, which killed 2,500 people.
Six of these storms could become hurricanes, and two have the potential to become intense or major hurricanes, a Category 3, 4 or 5 under the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, which is used to classify tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean.
"As best as we can tell now, we're in for an average season," said TMP member and CSU Professor William Gray, who has been predicting hurricanes for 26 years.
Hurricanes in these three categories attain wind speeds of 111 mph or greater, said Gray and Phil Klotzbach, lead forecaster, both of whom have spent years honing their skills in order to accurately predict the upcoming hurricane season.
The Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory said on their Web site that storms are given names to provide an ease of communication between forecasters and the public.
AOML also stated that the terms hurricane and typhoon are region-specific names for strong tropical cyclones. Typhoons refer to the northwest Pacific Ocean west of the dateline, while hurricane refers to the North Atlantic Ocean and northeast Pacific Ocean east of the dateline.
Klotzbach warned at looking at the recent prognostications as certainties.
"When you look at the forecast, it's a guideline," he cautioned.
The team's forecast calculates:
A 54 percent chance that a major hurricane will make landfall on the U.S.
A 32 percent chance that a major hurricane will strike the east coast, including Florida, and
A 31 percent chance that a hurricane will hit the Gulf Coast, from Florida's panhandle to Brownsville, Texas.
Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana as a Category 3 in 2005, claiming about 1,500 lives. With this, it earned the title of the third deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S., behind the 1990 Galveston Hurricane, which killed about 8,000 people and the 1928 Lake Okeechobee Hurricane, which killed 2,500 people.
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