Hey All
The time has come to make the 'oddball' thread for 2024 similar to the last 4 years, using the Chinese Zodiac to apply the 12 and 60 year cycles that exist within this astrology and see if it can shed some light on what this season could bring, with the 2024 season having officially started last week! The year 2024 is known as the Wood Dragon in Chinese Astrology, last seen 60 years ago! This thread is a continuing for-fun experiment to see if Chinese Astrology can actually paint a 'big picture' idea of what a particular season could bring, if indeed there really exist 12-year and 60-year zodiacal cycles that extend into the world of tropical cyclones.
This is the 5th time around doing these threads since 2020, can you believe it? How time flies!!
Last year 2023, was fairly tame when it came to impacts, with mostly Idalia and Franklin causing trouble. It more-or-less followed what was pondered, a season that would maybe be nicer to most of the CONUS except for a potential GOM system, spare South Florida and maybe impact Hispaniola & the Islands more directly, while having many recurves elsewhere. Fortunately there was no repeat of a 1963 Flora in Hispaniola, and even though Franklin did go right over the island, it did so as a much less severe system (fortunately his 150 MPH peak happened after the Hispaniola landfall). Hurricane Idalia was quite significant for the Big Bend area of FL further up the Sunshine State’s coast though, and I think this storm best matched the 1843 Water Rabbit year hurricane that struck the same general area. South FL and most of the CONUS did get lucky at least, but even in 2023 the I-storm managed to do its thing.
Now that we’re entering the 5th year doing this, lets see how the past 4 seasons fared number-wise, and see if there was any correlation:
2020 – Predicted = 19/9/6 & ACE 175-225... ACTUAL = 30/14/7 & ACE 180
2021 – Predicted = 16/8/4 & ACE 105-135... ACTUAL = 21/7/4 & ACE 145
2022 – Predicted = 20/9/4 & ACE 135-165... ACTUAL = 14/8/2 & ACE 95
2023 – Predicted = 15/7/3 & ACE 105-125... ACTUAL = 20/7/3 & ACE 146
1) The result is that 3 out of the 4 year predictions busted too low on the NS/H/M (especially NS) and the ACE prediction was basically a crapshoot, haha. Seems the only thing that stayed, more or less, in line was the number of Hurricanes and the number of Major Hurricanes… so the H/MH part of the NS/H/MH count, which is the big stuff too.
2) There also seems to be somewhat of a match with the locations being impacted and the timing + severity of the storms…
-2020 was crazy all around with a big GOM & Caribbean storm-fest and an insane FALL (Oct-Nov) (similar to 1780 but with Carib storms much further west). Monsters included LAURA which took an eerily similar path and hit (with likely similar intensity) very close to where the Aug 24 1780 Louisiana hurricane hit. Afterwards, the barrage of Greek insanity that followed in October and November propelled 2020 into truly infamous and historic territory, similar to how 1780 was back-loaded featuring a nasty October. True to its zodiac year, the season gave one more point to the infamy of Rat years and their #1 spot on the zodiac hierarchy. 2020 essentially killed the Greek alphabet.
-2021 had a fast finish and featured Ida which was sort of like a smaller version of Carla 1961 but with a track that went into Louisiana instead of TX, during the Peak of the season. 2021, like many Ox years of the past, was fairly front-loaded, affected the GOM for the most part, and wasn’t as devastating as other seasons.
-2022 was a tricky one with a fairly low storm count for this era, only 2 Majors, yet had devastating impacts (Fiona & especially Ian). Ian existed not too far from where a major 1842 Florida major hurricane did (Antje’s hurricane). Ian ended up being Southwest Florida’s worst hurricane in over 100 years. 2022 in true Tiger year fashion, delivered a devastating strike despite having lower named storm counts (kind of like 1998).
-2023 was quite nice to most land areas but managed to be very busy with storm counts and even had a Category 5 Lee. Idalia was really the only big impact storm of the season and struck near where a 1843 FL Big Bend hurricane struck. 2023 in Rabbit year fashion, had a lot of recurves and played “nicer” with most land areas while actually dealing some impressive Cape Verde systems.
This begs the question… what could be said about 2024??
Without much further ado, the Answer is… A 1964 type season, a highly impactful and powerful hurricane season is in the cards. We could have the worst season since 2020 on our hands. 2024 is the Year of the Wood Dragon and it could bring something very different compared to the past 4 seasons, according to this astral wizard method. 2024 could bring a crazy season in both numbers and impacts (in-line with the projections from the Pros) and big changes with respect to the storm tracks, bringing a respectable number of Cape Verde & Caribbean storms, putting FL (including Southeast FL) in the crosshairs along with others like the Greater Antilles, Leeward Islands, Bahamas, Gulf Coast, Central America and even the Carolinas/Mid Atlantic. Florida could have multiple hurricane hits, same goes for the islands such as Hispaniola, Jamaica & Cuba. 2024 could very well be like its closest 60-year cycle Zodiac predecessor, 1964, but on crack. Think Cleo, Dora, Hilda, Isbell from that year but in a season that (thanks to the active-era & climate change) could dish out nearly TWICE the NUMBER of NS, and maybe keep the 1964 pace of 7 Hurricanes & 5 MAJORS… if not have a bit more.
PREDICTION: These are the numbers we might be dealing with in 2024 thanks to this stuff: 25/11/7
ACE ~ 175 - 225
In addition, this is a Watch Zone map I made for 2024, to accompany this prediction, based on the history of these Dragon years that you’ll read about further down this post:
2024 Hurricane Watch Areas, Based on the History of Dragon-Year Cycle:
Now that you guys got to see the 2024 ‘prediction’, lets take a closer look at this astrology, what the Year of the Dragon means, and look at what led to these numbers and guessed impact watch areas…
The Chinese Zodiac
Chinese Astrology is a bit more complex than most people think, because this ancient astrology system also assigns 5 different elements (Metal, Water, Wood, Fire, Earth) to the yearly animal signs, making for a total of 60 different year combinations! This way 2020 was a Metal Rat year, 2021 a Metal Ox year, 2022 a Water Tiger, 2023 a Water Rabbit year, and now 2024 is a Wood Dragon year. Each element cycle lasts 2 years. 2025, next year, will be the Wood Snake year.
Here’s some history on the origin of the zodiac, for those interested, in the link below:
https://depts.washington.edu/triolive/quest/2007/TTQ07030/history.html
This ancient wisdom handed down by the Chinese is thousands of years old, and perhaps, just perhaps, it may also extend into tropical meteorology.
In a bit more scientific view, perhaps there exist recurring significant weather patterns, happening to some degree, every 12 years / 60 years around the world for some reason, including the tropics. If we take a step back, we could look and say that Chinese Astrology indicates that there are possibly 12-year and 60-year natural cycles at play, and the animal signs only make it easier and more ‘fun’ to point them out. Okie dokey, lets get into the 2024 stuff:
The year 2024 falls within the 12-year cycle the Chinese call the Year of the Dragon, and the 60-year cycle which is called the Wood Dragon.
Using the 12 year cycle, we'd look at the years 2012, 2000, 1988, 1976, 1964, 1952, 1940, 1928, 1916, 1904, and so on, to get an idea of what 2024 could be like. Interestingly, the seasons in this cycle were generally on the busy side, with significant Cape Verde activity and long track hurricanes, including many truly historic events such as the 1928 San Felipe Hurricane and Gilbert to name a few. Dragon years, like their namesake, can be mighty hurricane years.
The sexagenary cycle (60 yr) reinforces the thought even more that 2024 could be a busy and high-impact season, simply looking at the previous 5 such years (1964, 1904, 1844, 1784, 1724), of which FOUR of them featured TWO significant Cat 2+ landfalls or more. The 1964 season might just prove to be the best analog for 2024 with respect to storm tracks and number of major hurricanes, with the chance for an extreme season that features multiple landfalls and one in which Southeast FL also gets hit, with FL along with Cuba and perhaps the other Caribbean Islands getting hit twice or even thrice.
The graphic below is 300 years of history of Dragon years of all types (12-yr cycle), and the green tracks represent the tracks of significant hurricanes that happened in the Wood Dragon years (60-yr cycle):
Dragon Year Significant Hurricane Tracks – Cat 2+ landfalls - 12 & 60 year cycles:
The Year of the Dragon has definitely been no joke throughout the centuries, and big hurricanes that happened within this general 12-year cycle included the Great Gust of 1724 in the Mid Atlantic, the San Agustin & Alexander Hamilton Hurricanes of 1772 which happened just days from each other, the 1844 Cuban Hurricane, 1856 Last Island Hurricane, 1916’s extremely active hurricane season (9 systems made landfall in US, most in one season until 2020), the CAT 5 Killer 1928 San Felipe / Okeechobee Hurricane, 1952’s Category 4 Fox into Cuba, 1964’s THREE Category 2 Florida hits (Cleo, Dora & Isbell), 1988’s Cat 5 Gilbert & Cat 4 Joan, and 2012’s Sandy. Of the element years, the slowest one seemed to be the Metal Dragon year (which last was 2000). The other 4 Dragon years proved far more eventful. Earth Dragon years brought monster Cat 5s (despite not having many, definitely quality over quantity). The Water Dragon & Fire Dragon were similarly quite active, and generally split with the Fire Dragon years keeping its big hurricanes more south and west, while the Water Dragon years keeping its big storms more east and north. The Wood Dragon year might be the most prolific with landfalls out of all the Dragon years in terms of the amount of significant systems hitting land, and the tracks of its big hurricanes generally went down the middle path between the other Dragon year tracks.
The 60-year cycle of Wood Dragon year is among the busiest of the Dragon years, and these were the highlights of the past 5 such years since 1724…
-1724 featured twin hurricanes, probably near Cat 2 strength, that hit the Mid Atlantic from Eastern NC up through the DelMarVa and caused severe impacts and floods. One of these is known as the Great Gust of 1724.
-1784 had a July low rider Caribbean cruiser that struck Grenada then into Curacao and subsequently went into Honduras. This was followed by a significant hurricane that crossed Dominica in Late July 1784, then went to strike Jamaica and the Pensacola FL area in early August.
-1844 featured two hurricanes that struck Florida. The September 1844 hurricane was a small yet very intense system that went into Daytona Beach and traveled to Apalachicola, leaving major damage throughout its path. A month after, Oct 1844, a powerful hurricane known as the 1844 Cuban Hurricane struck near Havana on Oct 4, killing over 100 people, then tracked northward over Florida affecting the Keys and much of the Peninsula.
-1904 was the least significant Wood Dragon year out of these five such years since 1724. The season did manage to bring a Cat 1 hurricane strike on South Carolina in September. An October storm also tracked north out of the Caribbean into central Cuba and hit Key Largo as a Category 1 hurricane, affecting the Miami area with Cat 1 conditions as well. These systems were not plotted in the graphic above since they stayed below Cat 2 landfall intensity.
-1964 was pure madness, and had 5 major hurricanes and 4 of these also went on to strike land, including the CONUS. Cleo was a near Cat 5 Hurricane that rampaged though the Caribbean Islands en-route to FL. Cleo went over Guadeloupe as a strengthening Cat 3 hurricane on Aug 22, tracked south of Puerto Rico as a Cat 4 and struck Southwest Haiti as a major hurricane on 8/24-25 with devastating consequences. Cleo weakened as it trekked over Cuba while turning northward towards South Florida. Cleo managed to re-strengthen into a Cat 2 as she made landfall over Miami / Fort Lauderdale and rode up the east side of the state. Hurricane Dora came next from the east and made a rare Cat 2 hit on the Jacksonville / St Augustine area in September. October 1964 brought Cat 4 Hilda and Cat 3 Isbell, with Hilda coming down to a Cat 2 as she hit Louisiana in early October, followed by Isbell a few weeks later hitting West Cuba and South FL from the Southwest also as a Category 2, though she did attain Cat 3 right before affecting the Keys. The season brought 3 landfalls to Florida in particular.
Taking all the above into account, I made the following graphic which shows the kind of storm tracks we could see for 2024’s big hurricanes of Cat 2+ landfall. I came up with 8 such possible tracks and they’re listed in general descending order from most likely to least likely. Tracks 1 through 4 being more likely than tracks 5-8… also it is very important to mention that not all of these are expected to happen!... maybe THREE of these in a worse-case scenario:
Possible 2024 Significant Hurricane Tracks – Cat 2+ landfalls:
As for how we got the numbers prediction for 2024:
We try a different experimental number calculation for fun with this zodiac to see if we can get a better NS/H/MH guess this time around, having seen that most of the previous experimental predictions busted too low (perhaps we should put more weight on the recent averages and not those from long ago)…
We look at the more unique 60-year cycle better, the Wood Dragon years, and use the most recent one which is 1964. Take 1964’s seasonal numbers (13/7/5) and compare them to the average numbers for that era (which is 9/5/3), and see that 1964 was 145% busier for Named Storms than normal/ 140% busier for Hurricanes and 167% busier for Major Hurricanes compared to ‘normal’.
Math:
-1964’s 13 named storms divided by average of 9 NS back then = 1.45. = 145 %
-1964’s 7 Hurricanes divided by the average of 5 Hurricanes back then = 1.40 = 140%
-1964’s 5 Major Hurricanes divided by the average of 3 MH back then = 1.67 = 167%
This shows 1964 was unusually active for a typical season back in the 1960s. Perhaps this means that 2024 could be similarly very active for a season in the 2020s.
2024 Math:
We now take these NS/H/MH percentages of 145%/140%/167% (which represent how much busier than normal 1964 was compared to average back then) and compare (multiply) them to the most recent 10 year average of 17/8/4 (see below). It might be an better idea to look at the most recent 10-year average, which is also in-line with the modern technology era that helps us detect more named storms than ever before:
The 10 years containing the 2014-2023 seasons went like this:
2014: 8/6/2
2015: 11/4/2
2016: 15/7/4
2017: 17/10/6
2018: 15/8/2
2019: 18/6/3
2020: 30/14/7
2021: 21/7/4
2022: 14/8/2
2023: 20/7/3
Totals NS/H/MH Averages = (169/10)/(77/10)/(35/10) = 16.7/7.7/3.5
2014 - 2023 10-year Average: 16.7/7.7/3.5 = 17/8/4 rounded. This to me is perhaps the average we should compare to this season and the most recent Wood Dragon Year hurricane season, 1964.
Math: 1964 Percentages to the old Normal multiplied by the 2014-2023 Averages…
(145% X 17)/(140% X 8)/(167% X 4) = 24.65/11.20/6.68 = 25/11/7 when rounded.
Therefore, perhaps, 2024 could be about as unusually active for this current era as what 1964 was for its time back then.
Basically we took 1964’s numbers 13/7/5 and compared them to the average for that era of 9/5/3 which equaled that 1964 was 145% busier for NS than normal/ 140% busier for H/ 167% busier for MH compared to the old average of 9/5/3 from that era.
We subsequently took those NS/H/MH activity ratios of 145%/140%/167% and multiplied them to the most recent 10-year average of 17/8/4 and get the 25/11/7.
As for the ACE projection, this is simply more guesswork than anything else, a season having 25/11/7 would be likely in my opinion to have an ACE between 175 and 225… especially considering we may have some long trackers like 1964 did, running over many of the islands (and maybe preventing 225+).
I think all that you’ve read up to this point, adds some credence to a crazy and impactful season. This is how I think 2024 could end up being, and here goes the elaborated version of this crazy experimental prediction:
2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season Prediction:
2024 ends up with 25 named storms, 11 of which become hurricanes, and 7 major hurricanes. There are at least 4 possible scenarios based on the history of Dragon Years that could end up being the main highlights of the season impact-wise. The 4 Possible Scenarios for 2024 are as follows, in order from most likely to less likely:
1.) Approx. between August 20 – October 25… There could be a Major Hurricane that passes through the central or even northern Lesser Antilles and cruises the northern Caribbean until passing near Jamaica or Hispaniola, before turning northwest over Cuba and heading up into Florida (passing near or over Miami) and possibly the Carolinas. This would really be like a Cleo 1964 repeat. The storm could have a shot at Cat 4/5 before nearing Cuba, probably hits FL as a Cat 2 or Cat 3. This could perhaps be the worst case scenario for 2024, a storm that brings significant impacts to many across the Leewards, Greater Antilles and Southeast CONUS.
2.) Approx. between September 25 – November 25… A Major Cat 3 or Cat 4 storm forms in the Caribbean and heads NW before turning NE over Western Cuba and heading straight up into the Florida Keys and the FL Peninsula before exiting out over the Atlantic and maybe curl back towards the Carolinas while weakening. Cuba & Florida might get hit at Cat 3 strength, maybe Cat 4 in Cuba. This scenario is similar to a mix of Isbell 1964 and the 1844 Cuban Hurricane.
3.) Approx. between August 25 – October 15… A strong hurricane, possibly Cat 3-4, could take a 1964 Dora-like path and strike the northeast coast of FL or possibly SE Georgia, making quite a rare hit. The storm could alternately threaten this part of the US before veering into the Carolinas and heading straight up the DelMarVa. The hurricane could be quite destructive too, and be long-lived. Cat 3 strike might be possible. This scenario basically blends the track of Dora 1964 with the twin Mid-Atlantic hurricanes of 1724.
4.) Approx. between July 25 – September 15… A strong earlier hurricane takes a track similar to a mix of Hurricane Gilbert and the 1844 South TX hurricane, likely being a Caribbean cruiser that heads WNW into the Yucatan and subsequently heads for the Mexico – Texas border. Alternately, the storm could also veer north towards Louisiana or the FL Panhandle. This scenario, which might be a bit less likely, is a blend of the 1844 Mexico – TX hurricane, Gilbert 1988 and possibly the Last Island Hurricane of 1956.
2024 could offer a fairly interesting type of season we haven’t seen in some time, especially with regards to potentially different high-impact tracks and the chance for multiple landfalls, as well as places that have lucked out in the past several years that could see this streak end this year (Miami/ Fort Lauderdale FL, Northeast FL/GA and Jamaica being some of these areas). Heads up just in case my crazy crystal ball ends up being close to reality!
* By the way, if you have made it down this far, I've got one more interesting tidbit for ya, 1964 also happened to be the most active WPAC season on record... so the West Pacific may also get in on the action with typhoons, could be a memorable season there too!
Alright guys, all that which you've read is just my 2 crazy cents, so please take all of the above with a grain of salt. As I’ve mentioned before, This thread is experimental and probably geared more towards amusement rather than serious predictions, so take this as my disclaimer. The future conditions of the Atlantic, i.e. the SST's, ENSO, Teleconnections, MDR favorability, SAL and other meteorological indicators/factors will have the ultimate say in how the season goes, and these factors could easily change as we head into the peak of hurricane season.
Alright, let’s see how 2024 evolves over the next several months, it should be fun and exciting to watch and see if this esoteric stuff has any real meaning to the hurricane season once again!
Feel free to ask me questions or write whatever you wish here. We can track 2024 here too, and I’ll
try to keep this thread alive by posting updates, other experimental takes, visuals, and such whenever possible.
-FireRat
June 08 2024
