The 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season has not only been super active so far, but also super unlucky. In some past busy hurricane seasons, land areas have avoided some of the most extreme storms, but this year they have been a magnet.
Category 5 hurricanes have directly hit six land masses head on, leaving devastation in their wake almost every time. While just two separate hurricanes, Irma and Maria, did all the dirty work, they repeatedly found areas to target.
Brenden Moses, a researcher at the National Hurricane Center, found that of all Category 5 landfalls on record in the Atlantic since 1851, one-quarter have occurred this season. This is a remarkable statistic.
However, it’s important to remember monitoring of hurricanes was much more difficult before the advent of weather satellites in the late 1960s and storms may have been missed. That said, there is no precedent in the last half century of Category 5 storms striking land so frequently in the same season.
“…it’s important to remember monitoring of hurricanes was much more difficult before the advent of weather satellites in the late 1960s and storms may have been missed…” WHAT??!!
Storms MAY have been MISSED???!! Perhaps by the inhabitants of cemeteries but not by many others. Are Omnologos or Tommy-Poo Bates now writing for the WashPost and displaying their renowned logic skills?
The important information in this piece is “…a researcher at the National Hurricane Center, found that of all Category 5 landfalls on record in the Atlantic since 1851, one-quarter have occurred this season. This is a remarkable statistic”. (And the season has two more months to run)
Boy, its bad enough when I do it…but when I get embarrassed reading someone else’s rate that demonstrates an absolutely “FAILED” attempt at reading comprehension, and I get embarrassed for them…it must be totally off base.
The ‘missed’ storms would be the ones that stayed out to sea and never made landfall – say. back in the early 1900s, that no one might have know existed..which an entirely possible statistical flaw.
Oops.. so I give myself a fail here, I own my mistake.
1/4 of landfalls, not total storms. I stand corrected ..
Though I do think it is still justifiable to think that the chance of proper categorization in the earlier part of the period justifies mention.,
My “absolutely FAILED attempt” did take into account the storms that stayed out to sea and never made landfall. Considering the amount of worldwide ship traffic that began back in the days of colonial empires, someone must have noticed the big storms and “realized they existed”, even if they were not able to track and quantify them as nicely as we can now with the satellites. They certainly could make rough estimates of intensities, especially when a lot of ships were lost to them and never came back.
Glad to see that YOUR reading comprehension improved on your second reading of the piece. The 1/4 of all landfalling category 5’s since 18 freakin’ 51 is a far more important statistic than the statistical flaw of those MAYBE missed.
Ummm, there are many TS’s and hurricanes that do not make landfall, Check TS and now zombie hurricane Lee
Could this have anything to do with the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation)? My understanding is that it switched from negative to positive recently, so it would no longer suppress global warming as much, and maybe that is showing up in an enhanced Atlantic hurricane season
I think maybe you’re right—-can’t remember a reference, but I do remember reading that somewhere.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/pacific-flip-climate-change-1.4295062
There was also an earlier article on the Conversation re the PDO and Nasty uncle El Tio and benevolent aunt La Tia (if you can call sweeping the heat under the ocean surface blanket benevolent)
There was also an article I unfortunately failed to save re the effect of the moon and it’s cycles along with solar system cycles affecting the ocean and atmospheric cycles, they were able to pin down those cycles accurately. Deniers of course jumped on it as proof that AGW was not the culprit completely missing the point that models can now be better calibrated and that AGW superimposition more accurately judged.
After all just the natural cycles we need to better understand, but not the cause of the warming