Winter, We Hardly Knew Ye, And That's A Bad Thing
The start of hurricane season is about three months away, and early predictions call for a season as intense as last year's, maybe worse.
Why?
Because of a wimpy winter.
Here we are at February's end, and the air already is getting warm and juicy. Recent temperatures have poked into the low 80s. Only once during winter did temperatures get low enough to kill some of my backyard plants.
Having grown up and lived in Texas all my life, I know that there'll be at least one, perhaps two, more cold blasts to come, but as far as warming the Gulf of Mexico is concerned, it'll be too little, too late.
The warmer-than-usual Gulf, means potentially nasty as well as earlier-than-usual hurricane season. The ocean was warm enough for Tropical Storm Zeta to form and wander around in the Atlantic in January.
AccuWeather.com, looking at various factors ranging from a weak El Nino to surface pressure and atmospheric steering currents, calls for "an extremely active Atlantic basin hurricane season" with "intense hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico."
Taking into account that the hurricane strikes in recent years seem to be moving west, going from Florida to Alabama to Mississippi and Louisiana and then into Texas, I believe, in my ignorant, undereducated opinion, that Texas is going to get hammered this year.
In this article - http://wwwa.accuweather.com/promotion.asp?dir=aw&page=winterfrcst - 2005-06 is being compared with 1995-96. 1995 became the second-busiest tropical since since 1871. 1996 was unusual because every tropical despression ultimately became strong enough to get a name, and two hurricanes bashed the North Carolina coast.
As best as I can tell, though, Texas has never had major hurricanes hit the coast in back-to-back years.
Looking at this - http://www.tdi.state.tx.us/commish/storms/hhistory.html - the intervals are all over the place, but no back-to-back years.
However, I just have a gut feeling that Texas, perhaps Southeast Texas, is going to get smacked this year, and all the meteorological elements are in place for this to happen.
We'll see.
Why?
Because of a wimpy winter.
Here we are at February's end, and the air already is getting warm and juicy. Recent temperatures have poked into the low 80s. Only once during winter did temperatures get low enough to kill some of my backyard plants.
Having grown up and lived in Texas all my life, I know that there'll be at least one, perhaps two, more cold blasts to come, but as far as warming the Gulf of Mexico is concerned, it'll be too little, too late.
The warmer-than-usual Gulf, means potentially nasty as well as earlier-than-usual hurricane season. The ocean was warm enough for Tropical Storm Zeta to form and wander around in the Atlantic in January.
AccuWeather.com, looking at various factors ranging from a weak El Nino to surface pressure and atmospheric steering currents, calls for "an extremely active Atlantic basin hurricane season" with "intense hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico."
Taking into account that the hurricane strikes in recent years seem to be moving west, going from Florida to Alabama to Mississippi and Louisiana and then into Texas, I believe, in my ignorant, undereducated opinion, that Texas is going to get hammered this year.
In this article - http://wwwa.accuweather.com/promotion.asp?dir=aw&page=winterfrcst - 2005-06 is being compared with 1995-96. 1995 became the second-busiest tropical since since 1871. 1996 was unusual because every tropical despression ultimately became strong enough to get a name, and two hurricanes bashed the North Carolina coast.
As best as I can tell, though, Texas has never had major hurricanes hit the coast in back-to-back years.
Looking at this - http://www.tdi.state.tx.us/commish/storms/hhistory.html - the intervals are all over the place, but no back-to-back years.
However, I just have a gut feeling that Texas, perhaps Southeast Texas, is going to get smacked this year, and all the meteorological elements are in place for this to happen.
We'll see.
posted by Brian Pearson at 10:23 AM
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