Seasonal Forecast Interview

By Jene' Young Meteorologist

Check out the rest of Dr. Blackwell's Seasonal Forecast Interview. Seasonal Forecast Interview

Published: Fri, November 30, 2007 - 5:00 pm Last Updated: Fri, November 30, 2007 - 10:28 pm

Jene' Young

Watch the video to see what else Dr. Keith Blackwell, a professor and researcher from the University of South Alabama Meteorology, has to say about hurricane forecasting.
Here is the text of the interview...

How long have you been interested in hurricanes?
"I grew up here along the Gulf Coast, and Hurricane Camille got me interested in hurricanes, and I never looked back. I followed my dream of becoming a forecaster and researcher of hurricanes."

What do you like about hurricane forecasting?
“Hurricane tracking and forecasting is very interesting. There’s never a dull moment cause once you think that you got things figured out, there is always some surprise that comes along. Oh yeah, look at this, that’s going to influence the storms differently that I thought before. There’s always this element of uncertainty that keeps you on your toes."

How about the early season predictions?
“Early season projections were that we were going to have an above normal hurricane season, and we did as far as named storms. But the amount of activity, and the intensity and longevity of the activity was well below what it should’ve been with this number of storms.”

What happened to the storms this year?
“They got ripped apart by wind shear, or moved into very dry conditions in the subtropical Atlantic which essentially destroyed them. And I’ve never really quite seen a season like this year for its inactivity in the central Atlantic. It’s very unusual to have no activity in the subtropical Atlantic.
This year, the waters were still above normal in the temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean, and we also had a La Nina going on in the Pacific which tends to enhance Atlantic hurricane activity. And it still turned out that we had a season that won’t be remembered for much. Which is a good thing for us here along the Coast!
There were some other mitigating factors that overcame the positive benefit of a warm ocean. One of those, it looked like dry air and Saharan dust from the Saharan desert in Africa dominated a lot of the Central Atlantic and the Subtropical Atlantic and may have been one of the significant reason there wasn’t storm activity there. Another problem was that it looked like the wind shear in the tropics was relatively weak and favorable for hurricanes. The wind shear in the subtropics over the Atlantic was relatively strong, particularly over the tropical Atlantic. And I believe that reduced the number of storms and the length they could stay alive.”

How difficult are seasonal forecasts?
“Seasonal forecasting is incredibly difficult. As everybody that lives on this planet knows, forecasting just a few days into the future is a difficult prospect. Forecasting months into the future, or maybe a year into the future is fraught with difficulty. There are many oscillations in the atmosphere that are not very well predicted that have significant influence on hurricane season.
I think the last two seasons, the fact that these forecasts have not panned out well, shows us there’s still a lot we don’t know, and there’s still a ways to go with seasonal forecasts. I think it’s difficult to get too excited that fact that longer range forecast are showing that it’s going to be an above normal season because first, you really don’t know if that’s going to be the case. Secondly, you really have no idea where the storms are going to go. And there may be an above normal probability that there are going to hit the United States. But there’s been an above normal probability for the past several years and 2006, 2007, we really haven’t seen a major hurricane striking the United States.”

Since the mid 90s, scientists have said we are in an above normal cycle? What does 2006 and 2007 mean with that cycle?
“Just because we’re in an above normal hurricane period, as far as activity is concerned doesn’t mean that every year is going to generate a catastrophic season like we saw in 2004 and 2005.
There are cycles that happen, even in active hurricane periods, where some seasons are going to be significantly less active than other seasons. It’s not just oh my goodness, we’re in an active hurricane period, therefore every season is going to be a wipeout. We still have fluctuations in activity from season to season, some caused by el nino, others caused by different atmospheric patterns that develop over the tropics.”