Government forecasters predicted Monday that 13 to 16 tropical storms would form in the Atlantic Ocean during the six-month hurricane season that begins June 1, far fewer than last year's calamitous season but still more than usual.
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Text: 2006 Hurricane Outlook (noaa.gov)
Of those storms, 8 to 10 are likely to become hurricanes, including as many as 6 major hurricanes, those of Category 3 strength or higher, said Conrad C. Lautenbacher Jr., administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Two to four hurricanes are likely to make landfall in the United States this season, he said.
The heightened potential for storms comes from tropical waters that, while cooler than last summer's, are still warmer than usual, along with favorable wind patterns, Mr. Lautenbacher said. Much, however, will depend on smaller-scale weather patterns that cannot be predicted this far in advance, he said.
"Remember that it only takes one hurricane in your neighborhood to make it a bad season," Mr. Lautenbacher said in a news conference at the National Hurricane Center.
He and other forecasters and emergency officials urged the public to prepare more scrupulously than last season, saying citizens should do a better job of stockpiling supplies in advance, preparing evacuation plans and heeding evacuation orders from officials.
Federal hurricane experts say the Atlantic Ocean is in a cycle of intense hurricane activity that started in 1995, producing 28 named storms last year, more than at any other time since the government began keeping records in the mid-1800's.
Other experts, including some scientists working for the oceanic agency, say that a decades-long global warming trend, linked by most climate experts to the accumulation of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping emissions, may be playing a role in increasing the power of hurricanes in recent decades.
While there is significant debate and little clear data on what forces, natural or human, have played a role in recent seasons, many ocean and climate experts say it is likely that warmer oceans will favor stronger storms in coming decades.
Fifteen of last year's storms grew into hurricanes, the fiercest of which, Hurricane Katrina, devastated New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, killing at least 1,100 people. Three others made landfall: Hurricane Dennis, which hit the Florida Panhandle on July 10; Hurricane Rita, which made landfall near the Texas-Louisiana border on Sept. 24; and Hurricane Wilma, which pummeled South Florida on Oct. 24.
On average, the Atlantic hurricane season produces 11 named storms, with 6 becoming hurricanes, according to NOAA.
In what Mr. Lautenbacher called a "silver lining," a weak La Niña condition — a cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean that often encourages stronger hurricanes in the Atlantic — has dissipated and will not be a factor this year. But existing wind patterns could combine to reduce wind shear over the Atlantic, thereby encouraging hurricane formation.
Wind shear occurs when winds at successively higher altitudes differ in velocity or direction. This condition can shred tropical storms before they grow to hurricane proportions. A storm is considered a hurricane when its winds reach 74 miles per hour.
A central paradox in hurricane forecasting is that while experts have become adept at presaging a busy storm season, they still have not improved predictions for whether hurricanes will strike land, or where they are most apt to strike.
Luck still largely determines whether a particular spot on a map, say the Outer Banks of North Carolina or the Florida Keys, will suffer in a particular season, said Kerry A. Emanuel, a hurricane expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
That uncomfortable reality is why forecasters tend to fall back on the standard wisdom that anyone in a hurricane-prone region needs to prepare for the worst.
The seasonal forecasts swing on several sets of conditions in the atmosphere and the tropical Atlantic Ocean: water temperature, the potential for wind shear, and patterns in atmospheric pressure between Africa, where most tropical storms are born, and the Americas, where they tend to go.
Several researchers, including Dr. Emanuel, have published papers in the past year in which they claim to have found a big buildup in the power of hurricanes in recent decades that can be explained only by human-driven global warming.
But a separate camp of scientists, including Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, and some other federal hurricane researchers, contends that natural cycles in temperatures in the Atlantic and atmospheric patterns above the sea surface caused a lull in midcentury and have contributed to the surge in storminess since 1995.
While scientists remain divided on the cause of this intense period, emergency officials were united Monday in stressing that people in hurricane zones were responsible for their own safety and should move more quickly when told to flee.
"We have to somehow get that message across," said R. David Paulison, acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "When you don't take care of yourselves, it stops our first responders in the street from dealing with people who really do need help."
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