McFeatters: Get ready for hurricane season
A storm surge pushes waves over rocks on the Long Island Sound at Belle Terre beach in Port Jefferson during hurricane Sandy. (Oct. 29, 2012) Credit: Heather Walsh
Maybe it's our imagination, maybe weather information is just better and faster, or maybe it really is global warming. But between wildfires, droughts, tornadoes, record temperatures and floods, our weather is getting on the biblical side of scary.
And this month marks the start of peak hurricane season, from mid-August to mid-October. The broader season technically runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.
In updating its Atlantic hurricane forecast this week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration covered all the bases, as weather forecasters like to do.
The Associated Press captured that ambiguity nicely in its story. "The Atlantic hurricane season may not be quite as busy as federal forecasters once thought," it reassuringly began, and then brought down the hammer: "but they still warn of an unusually active and potentially dangerous few months to come." In other words, don't worry -- but have the car gassed and loaded, the lawn furniture put away, and be ready to flee on a few hours' notice. Other than that, it should be a pretty nice couple of months.
The weather service slightly scaled back its forecast, anticipating from six to nine hurricanes instead of the seven to 11 predicted in May. It expects three to five of those to be major, with winds greater than 110 mph.
The AP reports that "the chance that 2013 will be busier than normal remains at 70 percent," odds that would tempt many bettors. "Make no bones about it, those ranges indicate a lot of activity still to come," says NOAA hurricane forecaster Gerry Bell.
The last time a major hurricane made landfall in the United States was Hurricane Wilma in 2005, NOAA says, noting that intervening 7 1/2-year stretch was the longest on record. We hope we're not tempting fate.
And what about Sandy, the "superstorm" that caused flooding along the New Jersey and New York shoreline, causing 117 deaths and roughly $50 billion in damages? It was not a hurricane and technically not even a major storm, just a lot of wind and rain.
So, no need to worry this fall; just be ready to panic on short notice.
Dale McFeatters is a nationally syndicated columnist.
