Dr Klotzbach / Dr. Gray's April Forecast (12/6/2)

[Agua]

Is Klotzbach a Phd?

[cycloneye]

Is Klotzbach a Phd?

From Dr Gray at the report:

Phil Klotzbach is an outstanding young scientist with a superb academic record. I have been amazed at how far he has come in his knowledge of hurricane prediction since joining my project in 2000. I foresee an outstanding future for him in the hurricane field. He is currently making many new seasonal and monthly forecast innovations that are improving our forecasts. The success of last year’s seasonal forecasts is an example. Phil was awarded his Ph.D. degree in 2007. He is currently spending most of his time working towards better understanding and improving these Atlantic basin hurricane forecasts.

[vbhoutex]

I can't remember for sure, but I believe Klotzbach is now in his mid twenties. I met his best friend(or so he says) a few years ago(2006) and iirc he told me he was 24 at that time. Klotzbach is quite the genius from what I understand(finiched hs early,etc.). He sure seems to be proving it so far.

[OuterBanker]

Sure enough! Last night's local news cast (Hampton Roads market is closest to the OBX) featured Gray's new forecast.
The lower numbers were treated as great news.

[jinftl]

As long as we don't ever hear from anyone that "i thought it was supposed to be a quiet season, that is why we didn't prepare or take the threat of Storm X seriously" than there is no downside to folks being a bit more at ease with these numbers.

It's been said a million times, but it merits repeating....all it takes is one storm being in the 'wrong place' at the 'wrong time' to make its mark. I would rather a season of 20 fish storms than a season of 5 landfalling 'canes.

[HURAKAN]

The numbers forecasted show a near-average season but that still doesn't mean that it won't be active. People that communicate this information must be careful not to downplay the situation.

[Ed Mahmoud]

Can always use the El Nino year (BTW, can we fix S2K so ñ produces the enye character? I know there is an alt-bunch of numbers code for almost every character, like º (alt-0186) for degrees, but how many number combinations do you expect a 45 year old guy to remember) example of 1992 and the one big storm in a slow year.


ETA: I have watched enough TV from the Spanish area Catalunya to know the Catalan don't have an enye character, but instead would spell a word like "child" as 'Ninyo', but building in ñ would also allow õ, which would allow us to discuss the city of Sao Paolo.

And when I was in the Navy, dots and 'tildas' were used in teaching us enlisted folks training to run nuclear reactors as a form of the derivative, instead of the lower case delta (or d) seen in things like dP/dt.

delta k was change in reactivity, delta k dot was the change in rate (or second derivative) of change in reactivity. Used in the start up rate equation, which I memorized in 1983 when living in Orlando, FL 32813.

[jinftl]

Exactly...there is no value in the public feeling panic as the season approaches....nor is there any value to having the public dismiss the season in April. Being prepared and staying informed is key...there is no way in April to sound an 'all clear' for anyone living along the Atlantic (GoM included).

Alot will come down to steering patterns...the number of expected landfalling storms would be much more telling in terms of what to expect as far as possible damage.

With such avid interest in the tropics, it is not hard to expect the season to take off from day 1 and never look back. If this board had been around in 1992, can you imagine the 'season cancel' posts that we would have seen as went through all of June, all of July, and half of August with nothing. No named storms. In fact, the season ended with less storms that average. It would be essentially an unmemoreable season except for that one storm...Andrew.

Wrong place, wrong time....takes only one

:uarrow: The numbers forecasted show a near-average season but that still doesn't mean that it won't be active. People that communicate this information must be careful not to downplay the situation.

[Ed Mahmoud]

Exactly...there is no value in the public feeling panic as the season approaches....nor is there any value to having the public dismiss the season in April. Being prepared and staying informed is key...there is no way in April to sound an 'all clear' for anyone living along the Atlantic (GoM included).

Alot will come down to steering patterns...the number of expected landfalling storms would be much more telling in terms of what to expect as far as possible damage.

With such avid interest in the tropics, it is not hard to expect the season to take off from day 1 and never look back. If this board had been around in 1992, can you imagine the 'season cancel' posts that we would have seen as went through all of June, all of July, and half of August with nothing. No named storms. In fact, the season ended with less storms that average. It would be essentially an unmemoreable season except for that one storm...Andrew.

Wrong place, wrong time....takes only one

The numbers forecasted show a near-average season but that still doesn't mean that it won't be active. People that communicate this information must be careful not to downplay the situation.

No doubt, even in September, even when multiple runs of the GFS show sustained Westerlies, more like an October or November pattern across the Gulf for a full two week period, even then you can't let the guard down for something sneaking underneath.

[jinftl]

Excerpt from update:

Gray and Klotzbach put the chance of a major hurricane striking the U.S. coastline at 54 percent, compared with an average probability of 52 percent.


Slightly higher than average, slightly better than 50/50 chance someone in the U.S. will see a landfalling Cat 3, 4, or 5...this may be a 'softer' number than the prior update, but still...

Not to mention, we have seen very clearly that a storm can be a Cat 1 or 2 and wreak incredible havoc.


There is a margin of error that was released with the report this week....not reported by news media...that 2/3 of the time, the predictions will end up within 1 standard deviation of the predicted value.

The range of 1 standard deviation (per the report)..meaning 66% of the time, the forecast will fall between these ranges:
Named Storms: 12 (+/- 4) = 8-16 storms
Hurricanes: 6 (+/- 2.2) = 3.8 - 8.2 hurricanes
Intense Hurricanes: 2 (+/- 1.4) = 0.6 - 3.4 intense hurricanes

[Cryomaniac]

True, it only takes one. On an unrelated note, if anyone ever gets the chance to make a movie about a hurricane, "It Only Takes One" would be the perfect title lol.

I agree. I'd try to write a story with that title, but I don't really know enough to do it justice.

[ROCK]

Ed, you should know better than to place a bet on the GFS beyond 180....

[KWT]

It has to be remembered as well that you can still have pretty much average numbers and have a very active season, for example 1985 was pretty close to average and yet had one storm/hurricane after another for the US.

[lurkey]

Not worthy of its own topic thread, but I couldn't decide which thread to post in. ..

[url=http://www.wral.com/weather/story/4921701/]
NCSU researchers predict normal hurricane season[/url]


Posted: Today at 11:18 a.m.

Raleigh, N.C. — Researchers at North Carolina State University said Thursday that 2009 should be a "near-normal" hurricane season.

Storm activity in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico will be slightly above the averages of past 50 years but in line with those from the past 20 years, said Lian Xie, a professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences.

Xie, statistics professor Montserrat Fuentes and graduate student Danny Modlin have forecast 11 to 14 named storms forming in the Atlantic basin, which includes the entire Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. Six to eight of those named storms might grow strong enough to become hurricanes, they said, and there is a 45 percent chance that one of those storms will make landfall along the coast of the southeastern United States as a hurricane.

Xie's data indicate the likelihood of three to five named storms forming in the Gulf of Mexico, of which one to three will become hurricanes. The researchers expect two to four named storms to make landfall along the Gulf Coast or Mexico, and there is a 70 percent chance that at least one of those storms will be of hurricane status.

"The data show that the number of storms this year will not vary significantly from those of the past 20 years. In fact, 2009's numbers are slightly lower than last year's prediction of 13 to 15 named storms," Xie said in a statement.

His methodology evaluates data from the last 100 years on Atlantic Ocean hurricane positions and intensity, as well as other variables like weather patterns and sea-surface temperatures.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through Nov. 30.

[HURRICANELONNY]

I hope none of these forecasters eat their words. There are 2 main factors that I see and read. That should make a more normal season. The SST's near the MDR. A chance. Slim at that. That El Nino will form during the latter part of the season. Gray said the Azores High was a little weaker and must be watched. And the NCEP doesn't even mention El Nino this fall. So will have to wait and see what changes in June.