Nov. 27, 2007 — In their annual how-we-did-with-our-forecast report, hurricane gurus William Gray and Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University said it turned out to be an average year despite their prediction of an above-average season.
Hurricane season runs June 1 through Nov. 30.
Cooler water and wind shear in the central tropical Atlantic resulted in a less-severe season, the two said in a news release issued Tuesday.
"The reasons for this year's average season are challenging to explain," said lead forecaster Klotzbach. "It is impossible to understand how all these processes interact with each other to 100-percent certainty. Continued research should help us better understand these complicated atmospheric/oceanic interactions."
A total of 14 named storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes developed in 2007, which they said was an average season compared with those from 1950 to 2000.
The team had predicted 17 named storms, nine hurricanes and five major hurricanes with their April and June forecasts. They lowered it in their August update to 15 named storms, eight hurricanes and four major hurricanes.
The team has over-predicted the hurricane activity of the past two seasons, according to the release. In seven of the past nine years, the team correctly predicted above- or below-average activity.
Alvis Christian, the V.I. Territorial Emergency Management Agency's deputy director on St. John, said he was quite relieved the territory didn't get hit with a hurricane during the 2007 season.
"The destruction that comes with it is something we can live without," he said.
However, he urged residents who know they have hurricane-preparation areas that need improvement, such as shutters, to do so over the next few months.
The last two hurricane seasons contrasted sharply with their predecessors.
"The 2006 and 2007 Atlantic-basin hurricane seasons were much less active than 2004 and 2005," Gray said.
He and his Colorado State team have provided seasonal Atlantic-basin hurricane forecasts for 24 years. Until Gray began developing his forecast model in the early 1980s, there were no objective methods for predicting whether forthcoming hurricane seasons were likely to be active, inactive or near average.
In 2004, the Colorado State team helped create the Landfalling Hurricane Probability website, which includes specific forecasts of the probability of landfalling tropical storms and hurricanes of Categories 1 to 2 and 3, 4 and 5 intensities for 11 regions and 55 subregions along the U.S. Gulf and East coasts. These subregions are further subdivided into 205 coastal and near-coastal counties.
"We're always working to improve our forecasting skills, and we hope these forecasts will continue to be of assistance to coastal populations, emergency managers, insurance providers and others concerned about Atlantic-basin hurricane activity," Klotzbach said.
They do not predict the probability of a hurricane hitting a Caribbean island.
The team plans to issue the first seasonal forecast of the 2008 Atlantic-basin hurricane season Dec. 7.
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