Dry May = More Florida Landfaller's

[tronbunny]

how about the horrible dry summer of 1998 in central FL?
How did nature resolve that?
It was dry that May, and June and....
Fires right through ... no major landfalls, certainly not in Central FL.

[Sanibel]

The explanation is simple. 1988 probably had a west-position Bermuda High with a cold Atlantic oscillation phase. I suspect there are other steering patterns that need to allign as well, but the main one is an active warm Atlantic CV belt producing long-trackers out of Cape Verde combined with a Bermuda High to keep them towards Florida.


This was not hindsight. The CNN broadcast pointing this out was in early July, well before all this happened...

[tronbunny]

Sanibel, I do respect your views here, but I fail to see that CNN published a report in July that forecast more than one major landfall in Florida because of the dry May.
It just doesn't compute..because Gary couldn't see it, and I have no faith that CNN knows better than Gray et. al.
There are a lot more factors invloved that even Landsea and Gray couldn't foresee.
Now that we are aware of many of these factors, it is easy to make the original stories fit our current knowledge.
No, CNN, nor anyone else could not have said with any certainty that there would be any major landfalls because of the setup back in May. (and if anyone did, why should anyone else have put any weight to what was said?)

[Sanibel]

There's a couple of things that need addressing here:


1st, since when does making a correct prediction about the possibility of a major Florida landfaller in advance work against the credibility of the predictor? They seem to have been correct.


2nd, I don't recall writing that CNN predicted more than one landfaller. Nor does that have any bearing on the main factors.


Seems to me to be simple enough. Before 2004 3 out of 6 of the 6 driest south Florida May's had major landfaller's that season. After 2004 that became 4 out of 7 - but this year included 2 (almost 3). I can't account for Gray or anyone else. To me it looks like CNN cited something that proved to have merit - in advance...

[tronbunny]

That's interesting information.
OK, I have not read the article, but as you state..
3 out of 6 of southFLs driest Mays had major landfallers...
That's 50:50, and would mean that their implications would have a 50:50 chance of being correct.
There's nothing scientific in it. It's odds.
And if there was something scientific, then Gray and/or Landsea would've also noted it.
Winning the lottery because you picked the right numbers does NOT make you a mathematical genius.
I'm saying that CNN made an observation that appears, in hindsight, to be fairly correct, but there's not enough evidence to suggest that their views are the climatological rule.
I thank you for the information, but do not have enough to look to the meteorological reports at CNN as authoritative, not even after their "luck" at getting that one right, this year.
There are clearly more factors than you have revealed, or they reported.

I do not have any less faith in YOUR analysis of synoptics.

[Sanibel]

I doubt CNN cooked it up in their back rooms. Knowing how journalism works, they probably got it from some official weather source and passed it along.

Gray and NHC don't waste time speculating about yearly phenomenon. They are partly in the confidence business. Too much detail that doesn't confirm and their confidence level goes down. That is why they stick to activity rather than landfalls.

I disagree that there is nothing scientific in it. The Bermuda High shift as well as cold and warm Atlantic oscillations are pretty science-based if you asked me...

[MGC]

CNN got the documents from Dan Rather at CBS.........MGC

[Huckster]

CNN got the documents from Dan Rather at CBS.........MGC

Good one, MGC