06/01/06

East Coast and Florida Peninsula possible targets

Hurricane forecasters say risk is high for another major landfalling storm

SARASOTA -- The East Coast of the United States and Florida peninsula are almost twice as likely to be hit by a major hurricane this year as are the battered communities along the Texas and Louisiana coasts, forecasters at Colorado State University said Wednesday.

"The odds of a major hurricane making landfall along the East Coast are more than twice the climatological average value this year,'' William Gray and Phil Klotzbach announced. "Landfall probabilities for the East Coast are quite high," because of favorable steering currents and other weather patterns that seem to be setting up to be another potentially dangerous hurricane season.

The East Coast -- including Southwest Florida -- has a 69-percent chance of being hit by a major hurricane, one classified as Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity, packing winds of at least 111 mph, the team announced. The average is 31 percent.

Gulf Coast communities from the Florida panhandle to Brownsville, Texas, have a 38-percent chance of being hit, the team said. The average is 30 percent. Steering current parameters for the Gulf Coast are mixed, keeping the probabilities low for the Panhandle and westward.

With an announced forecast of up to five major hurricanes forming in the Atlantic this season, Gray and Klotzbach said there was an 82-percent chance that at least one of them will hit the United States. The average is about 52 percent.

Klotzbach said that with so many storms forecast and the expected weather patterns as the hurricane season progresses, there is little doubt the risk is high.

The team also offers a regional and county-by-county breakdown of the risks.

For the region, which runs from Tampa Bay to Collier County, the team reports a 49-percent chance of a named storm striking (normal is 21.2 percent), and a 10.5-percent chance of a major hurricane making landfall (normal is 3.7 percent).

For Charlotte County, the team calls for a 2.5-percent chance of a landfall of any kind, and a 0.1-percent chance of a major storm.

For Sarasota County, the team calls for a 5.3-percent chance of some sort of storm and a 0.3 percent chance of a major storm.

For Charlotte and Sarasota counties, the numbers from Gray's team are similar to ones released before the 2004 and 2005 hurricane season.

Seasonal forecasts are based on statistical schemes and could be very wrong, he advised.

"These forecasts do not specifically predict where within the Atlantic basin these storms will strike," Klotzbach said. "The probability of landfall for any one location along the coast is very low and reflects the fact that, in any one season, most U.S. coastal areas will not feel the effects of a hurricane no matter how active the individual season is."

He adds that a low landfall probability does not ensure that hurricanes will not come ashore.

"Regardless of how active the 2006 hurricane season is, a finite probability always exists that one or more hurricanes may strike along the U.S. coastline or in the Caribbean and do much damage," he concludes.

No one in Florida needs to be reminded of the facts about hurricanes, with 10 named storms striking in the past two seasons, including the devastating Hurricane Charley on Aug. 13, 2004.

The hurricane season runs from today through Nov. 30.

By BOB REDDY

Staff Writer

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