holy atmospheric and oceanic conditions favoring hurricane formation Batman!!

NOAA is calling for a 95% to 100% chance of an above-normal 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. (gee ya think?? and you paid out big bucks to attend a higher education facility to be able to make a determination like that? stunning...)

on a serious note though, NOAA announced an revised August outlook for the 2005 season. the summary states: "For the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season the outlook calls for an extremely active season, with the seasonal ACE index forecasted to range from 180%-270% of the median. This range is above the 175% baseline that Goldenberg et al. (Science, 2001) use to define a hyperactive season. The outlook also calls for a seasonal total of 18-21 tropical storms (up from May's prediction of 12-15), with 9-11 becoming hurricanes (May esimtated 7-9), and 5-7 of these becoming major hurricanes [categories 3-4-5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale] (in May they were thinking more like 3-5).... Even though there has already been considerable early season activity (7 tropical storms, with two becoming major hurricanes), most of the activity is still expected to occur during the climatological peak months of August-October. Many of the storms during this period will develop from disturbances moving westward from the west coast of Africa, and will likely form over the tropical Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea in the region between 9°N-21.5°N (black box). Historically, tropical storms that first form in these areas account for 55% of all hurricanes and 80% of all major hurricanes....Tropical storms that form over the tropical Atlantic Ocean generally track westward toward the Caribbean Islands and/or United States as they strengthen into hurricanes, and therefore pose an increased threat to these regions."

wow-ee...

in layman's terms: it's been a record-breaking start to the season & it's only going to get busier with storms of even stronger intensity. and as the season progresses toward the typically most active months, the U.S. comes under a greater risk. prior to this update, there were 7 tropical storms and 2 major hurricanes. for the remainder of the season, we can expect an additional 11-14 tropical storms (if you're counting, that would mean that we would have a minimum of 18 named storms if we come in on the low end of this outlook--if we reach the maximum at 14 more named storms, we will actually run out of names on the 2005 list!), with 7-9 becoming hurricanes, and 3-5 of these becoming major hurricanes. and yes the increase in the outlook is certainly taking into consideration the fact that we've already been very busy in the tropics but they are saying that basically "we ain't seen nothing yet folks".

*gulp*