How will the 2009 hurricane season differ from the 2008 hurricane season?

How will the 2009 hurricane season differ from the 2008 hurricane season?
Please be specific - don't just say "worse" - explain whether that means more hurricanes, more severe hurricanes, a longer hurricane season, all of the above..... And don't just say "better" - explain whether that means fewer hurricanes, fewer storms, weaker storms, fewer storms hitting land, etc....

You're better off asking for next week's Powerball numbers. The modeling isn't that accurate. The NWS has been predicting 'worst year ever' for every year since 2005, and yet 2005 was far worse, but by no means the worst year, itself.


The number of hurricanes is not important. It is how they effect the areas that they land.

Example: Hurricane Isabel hit Virginia after a wet period with 80 mph winds and knocked down millions of trees but did little property damage. Hurricane Charlie hit the gulf coast of Florida and caused sever property damage but only in a small area. Hurricane Katrina was short on wind damage but caused massive property damage due to flooding.

Moral of the story is, a hurrican season can only be judged after the fact.
Source(s):
Did clean up after each of them and others.

"How important is the AMO when it comes to hurricanes - in other words - is it one of the biggest drivers? Or Just a minor player?

During warm phases of the AMO, the numbers of tropical storms that mature into severe hurricanes is much greater than during cool phases, at least twice as many. Since the AMO switched to its warm phase around 1995, severe hurricanes have become much more frequent and this has led to a crisis in the insurance industry."

http://www.72ba.com

Based on what is called "Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation", the trend is heading downwards. So we should have fewer, but this is based on a trend and will fluctuate from year-to-year. I think there will be a normal amount of "weaker" hurricanes and maybe 2 strong hurricanes.

If you plot the number and size of hurricanes and then apply simple statictical analysis, you will find that hurricanes are stable, yet random events that happen. You will find a well shaped bell curve with no trends over time. (except in very early years because we didn't have go data gathering systems.)

We don't know. Probably fewer hurricanes. We should pay close attention to John Gray, he's been the most accurate, but he's still usually wrong.

Hi:

No one knows way ahead of time about the storms,hurricanes etc.etc
But I believe most people are better prepared if it happens.


Who knows!

...and what would this years hurricane season prove either way?

A more useful question might be 'Are there more/stronger hurricanes these days than there were 50 years ago'?