New Orleans - You may have heard some recent predictions that call for less hurricane activity in 2009 compared to what ended up being a very busy season last year.
Still, powerful Hurricane Andrew hit the United States in 1992 - a year that was not very active overall.
With 16 named storms, the summer and fall of 2008 was a time of high anxiety along the Gulf Coast. Dr. William Gray, though, is not predicting the same for this year. His updated forecast calls for 12 named storms, with six hurricanes, and two major storms.
That would be close to the numbers for an average season.
One factor might be an El Nino event which tends to increase wind shear across tropical waters and decrease hurricane activity. Recent studies indicate El Nino could suppress storm development for 2009.
Even though hurricane season starts June 1 and continues all the way thru the end of November, the Gulf Coast region is not usually under the gun for that entire six month period. The main time for concern is August and September.
Over the last three years, even though coastal areas did suffer devastating effects from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, you should remember Ike was not a direct hit on Southeast Louisiana. Gustav came ashore as a weakening category two.
Katrina in 2005 reached category five strength at one point, but came ashore as a weakening category three. Looking back in history over the past 100 years, only six category three storms approached with 100 miles of New Orleans. All of those storms occurred in the months of August and September, except one storm that made landfall in June of 1919.
It is the same for category four storms. There have been seven storms that reached category four strength that came within 100 miles of the city over the past 100 years. All of which have occurred in the months of August and September. Of the seven storms, only two made landfall as category four.
Category five storms are the rarest. Since 1909, only eight of these have come within 100 miles of New Orleans. Of the eight, only one made landfall as a category five, and that of course was Hurricane Camille in August of 1969.
Finally, some people link the storm season after snow events to hurricanes, but this is not true. Over the past fifty years, there have been five snow events. True, there were two occasions when a major storm did hit months later.
Snow fell on the last day of 1963, and Hurricane Hilda, a category four storm, made landfall in central Louisiana in the summer of 1964.
We had a white Christmas in 2004, then, we had Katrina and Rita in 2005. But this is not connected to anything in nature, it was just coincidence.
So if someone tries to sell you on a supposed link between snow and hurricanes, don't buy it. There is no science to back up this silly myth.
