Hurricane forecast goes from bad to worse
Friday, June 4 2010
THE 2010 Atlantic hurricane season will be even more active than feared, leading US forecasters said on Wednesday as they predicted at least ten hurricanes, five of them major, with a 76 percent likelihood that a major hurricane would hit the US coastline.
The outlook from the Colorado State University team follows predictions by US government scientists for an intense season that could disrupt efforts to contain a huge Gulf of Mexico oil spill and also batter earthquake-ravaged Haiti.
Increasing a previous estimate for a “very active” season, the leading CSU storm research team founded by hurricane forecast pioneer William Gray said the six-month season beginning on June 1 would likely see 18 named tropical storms.
Of these, CSU saw ten becoming hurricanes, with five becoming major Category 3 or higher hurricanes with winds above 110 miles per hour (177 km per hour).
The CSU scientists increased their forecast from an April 7 prediction of 15 named storms, eight hurricanes and four major hurricanes.
The CSU team saw a 51 percent chance that a major hurricane would make landfall on the US East Coast, including the Florida Peninsula, and a 51 percent chance that one would hit the Gulf Coast, from the Florida Panhandle to Brownsville, Texas.
It put the chance of a major hurricane tracking into the Caribbean at 65 percent.
Detailing weather conditions seen favouring the formation of hurricanes, Gray said the CSU team increased its forecast “due to a combination of a transition from El Nino to current neutral conditions and the continuation of unusually warm tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures.
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