Top Hurricane Experts Predict Heavy Season for East Coast

Top Hurricane Experts Predict Heavy Season for East Coast

If a global pandemic causing health and economic crisis was not enough, top hurricane experts in the United States are predicting a heavy season of hurricanes on the East Coast.

The outlook from the experts at the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at Penn State University and Colorado State University (CSU) is a flag for emergency response agencies to begin to prepare for a potentially very significant and damaging season.

ESSC scientists Dr. Michael E. Mann and Daniel J. Brouillette and alumnus Dr. Michael Kozar released their seasonal prediction for the 2020 North Atlantic hurricane season, which officially starts on 1 June and runs through 30 November.

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

FOLLOW GoLocal Meteorologist John Ghiorse's "Ghirose Factor" Every Day on the Homepage

The prediction is for 19.8 +/- 4.4 total named tropical cyclones, which corresponds to a range between 15 and 24 storms, with a best estimate of 20 named storms. 

“The assumptions behind this forecast are (a) the persistence of current North Atlantic Main Development Region (MDR) sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies (+1.1 °C in early to mid-April 2020 from NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch) throughout the 2020 hurricane season, (b) the development of mild El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-negative conditions by boreal late summer and early fall 2020 (ENSO forecasts here; we used mid-April 2020), and (c) climatological mean conditions for the North Atlantic Oscillation in boreal fall/winter 2020-2021.

If no La Niña develops, then the prediction will be slightly lower: 18.3 +/- 4.3 storms (range of 14-23 storms, with a best guess of 19),” said the scientists.

And according to a Colorado State University report, “We anticipate that the 2020 Atlantic basin hurricane season will have above-normal activity. Current warm neutral ENSO conditions appear likely to transition to cool neutral ENSO or potentially even weak La Niña conditions by this summer/fall. Sea surface temperatures averaged across the tropical Atlantic are somewhat above normal.”

The administrators at CSU, Philip Klotzbach, Michael Bell, and Jhordanne Jones state that the number of category 4-5 hurricanes will be significantly higher than average years.

“We estimate that 2020 will have about 8 hurricanes (average is 6.4), 16 named storms (average is 12.1), 80 named storm days (average is 59.4), 35 hurricane days (average is 24.2), 4 major (Category 3-4-5) hurricanes (average is 2.7) and 9 major hurricane days (average is 6.2),” write the scientists.