\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0In its 2014 Atlantic hurricane season outlook, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center is forecasting a near-normal or below-normal season.<\/p>\n
The main driver of this year\u2019s outlook is the anticipated development of El Ni\u00f1o this summer. El Ni\u00f1o causes stronger wind shear, which reduces the number and intensity of tropical storms and hurricanes. El Ni\u00f1o can also strengthen the trade winds and increase the atmospheric stability across the tropical Atlantic, making it more difficult for cloud systems coming off of Africa to intensify into tropical storms.<\/p>\n
The outlook calls for a 50 percent chance of a below-normal season, a 40 percent chance of a near-normal season, and only a 10 percent chance of an above-normal season. For the six-month hurricane season, which begins June 1, NOAA predicts a 70 percent likelihood of 8 to 13 named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher), of which 3 to 6 could become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher), including 1 to 2 major hurricanes (Category 3, 4 or 5; winds of 111 mph or higher).<\/p>\n
These numbers are near or below the seasonal averages of 12 named storms, six hurricanes and three major hurricanes, based on the average from 1981 to 2010. The Atlantic hurricane region includes the North Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks to the environmental intelligence from NOAA\u2019s network of earth observations, our scientists and meteorologists can provide life-saving products like our new storm surge threat map and our hurricane forecasts,\u201d said Kathryn Sullivan, Ph.D., NOAA administrator. \u201cAnd even though we expect El Ni\u00f1o to suppress the number of storms this season, it\u2019s important to remember it takes only one land falling storm to cause a disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster with NOAA\u2019s Climate Prediction Center, said the Atlantic \u2013 which has seen above-normal seasons in 12 of the last 20 years \u2013 has been in an era of high activity for hurricanes since 1995. However, this high-activity pattern is expected to be offset in 2014 by the impacts of El Ni\u00f1o, and by cooler Atlantic Ocean temperatures than we\u2019ve seen in recent years. \u2013 NOAA,\u00a0read on<\/a><\/p>\n National Hurricane Preparedness Week is May 25-31. NOAA offers hurricane preparedness tips, along with video and audio public service announcements in both English and Spanish, featuring NOAA hurricane experts and the FEMA Administrator atwww.hurricanes.gov\/prepare<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0In its 2014 Atlantic hurricane season outlook, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center is forecasting a near-normal or below-normal season. The main driver of this year\u2019s outlook is the anticipated development of El Ni\u00f1o this summer. El Ni\u00f1o causes stronger wind shear, which reduces the number and … Continue reading HURRICANE SEASON<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[310,360,1951,309],"tags":[2022],"class_list":["post-8301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hurricane","category-noaa-weather","category-seasons","category-weather","tag-2014-hurricane-season"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8302,"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8301\/revisions\/8302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}