Following up on our previous post reporting Accuweather’s Joe Bastardi’s forecast of a “nasty” 2010 hurricane season, Mr. Bastardi has released his specific prediction for this year to include 16 to 18 tropical storms.  He further predicts 2 to 3 “major” hurricanes to directly affect U.S. coastlines.  Read full story…

Accuweather is forewarning that Thursday and Friday’s winter storm in the northeast U.S. will supersede the traditional category of blizzard and enter the realm of the mythical “snowacane” (blizzardus hurricanus?).  Apparently, its going to get bad.  Click here to read the full story.
At some point, these storms are going to start exhausting the capabilities of [...]

From a recent Reuters article, two major factors have contributed to an unusually mild hurricane season this year:

El Nino conditions have created significant wind sheer in the Atlantic.  This wind sheer can be devastating to hurricane development as winds high over the Atlantic effectively decapitate a storm heading towards the continent.
Atlantic ocean temperatures have [...]

As detailed in Jeff Master’s Wunderblog post, African tropical wave 99L shows strong potential for developing into this year’s first tropical storm in the Atlantic.  Most models place wave 99L as a tropical depression within 4 days.
Read Dr. Master’s full blog entry.  Satellite images taken by NASA on August 9th.

We are now entering the middle of the 2009 Atlantic Hurricane Season and its worth evaluating the prospects for the remainder of this year.  To date, there have been exactly zero named storms in the Atlantic.  That is fairly unusual.  In fact, as Jeff Masters points out in his Wunder Blog, “It has been 17 [...]

For your reference as me move forward into Hurricane season, lets review the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, taken from NOAA’s website:

Category One Hurricane:
Sustained winds 74-95 mph (64-82 kt or 119-153 km/hr). Damaging winds are expected. Some damage to building structures could occur, primarily to unanchored mobile homes (mainly pre-1994 construction). Some damage is [...]

In observance of the opening of Hurricane season, we’ll be examining each day this week various dynamics of hurricanes and hurricane season.  Today, lets appease our basic, visceral side and look at just how nasty a hurricane can get in terms of sheer force.
First, pop quiz.  Do you know what the strongest Atlantic Hurricane in [...]

The Atlantic hurricane season officially began June 1st.  Lets get an overview of what we could expect:
How Long is Hurricane Season?
Hurricane season begins June 1st and ends November 30th.  As the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) notes, however, “There is nothing magical in these dates, and hurricanes have occurred outside of these six months, [...]

While hurricane season won’t officially begin until Monday, June 1st, the first Tropical Depression of the 2009 Atlantic Hurricane Season has already formed.
Located about 225 east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, “Tropical Depression One” doesn’t appear to threaten land although it does appear poised to become a named storm (Ana) by Friday.  Read more…
This could [...]