If you pay attention to my posts, you will have remembered that my
scientific analysis predicted this last year.
By NEIL JOHNSON The Tampa Tribune
It was not the hurricane season we expected, thank you.
With cataclysmic predictions that hurricanes would swarm from the
tropics like termites, no one thought 2006 would be the most tranquil
season in a decade.
Barring a last-second surprise from the tropics, the season will end
Thursday with nine named storms, and only five of those hurricanes.
This year is the first season since 1997 that only one storm nudged its
way into the Gulf of Mexico.
Still, Florida was hit by two tropical storms, Alberto and Ernesto. But
after the pummeling of the previous two years, the storms barely
registered on the public's radar.
So what happened? Lots.
Storms were starved for fuel after ingesting masses of dry Saharan dust
and air over the Atlantic Ocean. Scientists say the storm-snuffing dust
was more abundant than usual this year.
In the season's peak, storms were curving right like errant field
goals. High pressure that normally hunkers near Bermuda shifted far
eastward, and five storms rode the clockwise winds away from Florida.
Finally, a rapidly growing El Nino, a warming of water over the
tropical Pacific Ocean, shifted winds high in the atmosphere southward.
The winds left developing storms disheveled and unable to become
organized.
As they say about the stock market: Past results are no indication of
future performance.
This year's uneventful season provides no assurance that next year will
be as calm:
=B7The Atlantic remains in a 20- to 30-year cycle of high hurricane
activity that started in 1995. Water temperatures are above normal.
=B7El Nino probably won't be around to decapitate storms.
=B7There's no promise that the Saharan dust will be as abundant.
BY THE NUMBERS
9: The number of named storms this year
17: The number of named storms predicted May 31 by a team at Colorado
State University led by Professor William Gray
45 mph: The wind speed when Tropical Storm Alberto hit the Florida
Panhandle near Adams Beach on June 13, the strongest winds over Florida
all season
56 percent: The average homeowner rate increase Citizens Property
Insurance Corp. requested even after no hurricanes struck Florida
27 percent: The Citizens rate increase approved to start Jan. 1
$100 million: Estimated damage in the United States from Tropical Storm
Ernesto
0: The number of storms that formed in October, the first time since
2002 that no storms formed that month. Also, no Category 4 or 5 storms
formed this year for the first time since 1997.
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