Un Con Troll Able
04-04-2006, 10:19 AM
By Michael Christie 22 minutes ago
MIAMI (Reuters) - The 2006 hurricane season will not be as ferocious as last year when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and other storms slammed Florida and Texas, but will still be unusually busy, a noted U.S. forecasting team said on Tuesday.
The Colorado State University team led by Dr. William Gray, a pioneer in forecasting storm probabilities, said it expected 17 named storms to form in the Atlantic basin during the six-month season, which officially begins on June 1.
Nine of the storms will strengthen into hurricanes, with winds of at least 74 mph, the team said, reaffirming an early prediction made in December and updated to include current trends like the La Nina weather phenomenon, cool Pacific waters and an abnormally warm Atlantic.
The Colorado State forecasters said five of the hurricanes were likely to be major storms, reaching at least Category 3 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, and boasting winds of at least 111 mph. Storms of Category 3 strength and above cause the most destruction.
But they also said there were likely to be fewer major storms making landfall in the United States compared to 2005, when virtually every hurricane record was broken, and also 2004, when Florida was bashed by four consecutive hurricanes.
"Even though we expect to see the current active period of Atlantic major hurricane activity to continue for another 15-20 years, it is statistically unlikely that the coming 2006-2007 hurricane seasons, or the seasons that follow, will have the number of major hurricane U.S. landfall events as we have seen in 2004-2005," Gray said in a statement.
The rest of the story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060404/us_nm/weather_hurricanes_dc;_ylt=Agq0CgCtBcNKgfvp2yBDxWq s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MjBwMWtkBHNlYwM3MTg-
MIAMI (Reuters) - The 2006 hurricane season will not be as ferocious as last year when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and other storms slammed Florida and Texas, but will still be unusually busy, a noted U.S. forecasting team said on Tuesday.
The Colorado State University team led by Dr. William Gray, a pioneer in forecasting storm probabilities, said it expected 17 named storms to form in the Atlantic basin during the six-month season, which officially begins on June 1.
Nine of the storms will strengthen into hurricanes, with winds of at least 74 mph, the team said, reaffirming an early prediction made in December and updated to include current trends like the La Nina weather phenomenon, cool Pacific waters and an abnormally warm Atlantic.
The Colorado State forecasters said five of the hurricanes were likely to be major storms, reaching at least Category 3 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, and boasting winds of at least 111 mph. Storms of Category 3 strength and above cause the most destruction.
But they also said there were likely to be fewer major storms making landfall in the United States compared to 2005, when virtually every hurricane record was broken, and also 2004, when Florida was bashed by four consecutive hurricanes.
"Even though we expect to see the current active period of Atlantic major hurricane activity to continue for another 15-20 years, it is statistically unlikely that the coming 2006-2007 hurricane seasons, or the seasons that follow, will have the number of major hurricane U.S. landfall events as we have seen in 2004-2005," Gray said in a statement.
The rest of the story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060404/us_nm/weather_hurricanes_dc;_ylt=Agq0CgCtBcNKgfvp2yBDxWq s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MjBwMWtkBHNlYwM3MTg-