2006 Hurricane Forecast - Are you ready?

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By Patrick O'Driscoll, USA TODAY

Don't expect much of a breather from this year's record-setting onslaught of hurricanes. A leading tropical forecast team predicted Tuesday that next year's season will be "very active," with a well-above-average number of major storms.

Unlike this year's record assault on U.S. shores, there is a "very low" probability that so many intense hurricanes will strike the USA, according to the Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University.

In its first outlook for 2006, the project team expects 17 named tropical storms in the June-through-November season. In a normal year, the Atlantic produces about 10 storms. This year, it had its most on record with 26, including four hurricanes that blasted U.S. shores: Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma. The 26th storm, Hurricane Epsilon, was still churning in the Atlantic as the new forecast was announced.

The team, led by scientist Philip Klotzbach and professor William Gray, predicts nine storms next year will become hurricanes, five of them major, with at least Category 3 intensity (winds 111 mph or more). On average, the Atlantic basin gets six hurricanes a year, two to three of them major.

Coastal regions of the USA were battered by four hurricanes both this year and last, with Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne hitting Florida in 2004. Gray says it is too early to say how many might reach land in 2006. The number will depend on short-term weather patterns and ocean wind currents.

The new forecast does predict an 81% probability that at least one major hurricane will strike the USA in 2006. Gray says the prediction is based on two factors: how many reached land in similarly active years in the past century, and water temperatures in the north Atlantic. The warmer the water, the more storms are likely to hit — and the ocean now is warm, he says.

This month's forecast will be updated five times from April through October. Never before has the December outlook called for so many storms.

Gray says that's because the December prediction is a "hindcast," based mainly on statistics of past seasons. He says certain global patterns at this time of year help predict how active next season will be. This year they include winds in the stratosphere, ocean currents, and warm sea temperatures.

"We've never had one year that has as many favorable signals at this stage for the next year's season," Gray adds. His December calculations have correctly predicted either an above-average or below-average season in five of seven years since 1999.

The names for the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season are Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby, Ernesto, Florence, Gordon, Helene, Isaac, Joyce, Kirk, Leslie, Michael, Nadine, Oscar, Patty, Rafael, Sandy, Tony, Valerie and William.

[Guest pod]

Hurricane Kirk and Oscar.

Promoters take note.

[Guest The K.]

Hurricane Kirk and Oscar.

Promoters take note.

South Florida will NEVER be the same.....

[Guest HouseJunkie]

La Nina... always costing me a lot of money.