Forecasters predict an 'extremely active' hurricane season
Government scientists issued one of their most aggressive seasonal outlooks ever, citing warm waters and La Niña.
Government forecasters issued one of their most aggressive hurricane season outlooks on record this August, warning of an "extremely active" Atlantic season and urging coastal residents to prepare for a barrage of storms.
The updated forecast called for a well above-average number of named storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes, citing a combination of unusually warm ocean temperatures, which provide fuel for storms, and the emergence of La Niña conditions, which tend to reduce the wind shear that can tear developing hurricanes apart.
Seasonal hurricane outlooks, issued before and during the season, do not predict where storms will strike, but they give a sense of how busy the overall season is likely to be. Forecasters stressed that it takes only one landfall to make a season catastrophic for a given community.
The season would go on to live up to the dire forecast, producing a record number of named storms and exhausting the standard list of names. It underscored the skill forecasters have developed in anticipating the broad character of a season months in advance.
Officials used the outlook to press a familiar message: that the time to prepare is before a storm is on the horizon. With warm waters and favourable atmospheric conditions aligning, the season ahead promised to be a dangerous one, and the forecast proved grimly accurate.