No relief from busy hurricane season: forecaster

MIAMI (Reuters) – The Atlantic hurricane season may produce
two more hurricanes in October, adding to what is already one
of the busiest and most destructive seasons on record, a noted
forecaster predicted on Monday.

Dr. William Gray of Colorado State University, who has had
some success predicting hurricane frequency in the past, said
in a monthly forecast update that October should produce three
tropical storms, which would take the season total to 21 and
tie the record for a single season set in 1933.

Tropical Storm Stan, which formed on Sunday, was the 18th
storm of the season. It hit the Yucatan Peninsula and was
moving through the Bay of Campeche on Monday toward a second
landfall on the Mexican coast on Wednesday.

The Atlantic season has already brought misery to the U.S.
Gulf of Mexico coast, where hurricanes Dennis, Katrina and Rita
displaced hundreds of thousands of people, destroyed tens of
thousands of homes and disrupted Gulf oil rigs and refineries.

Risk analysts have estimated that Katrina, which caused the
levees protecting New Orleans to fail, will be the costliest
hurricane in U.S. history.

Gray said two of the three October storms would become
hurricanes, one of which would be a major hurricane with winds
over 110 mph (177 kph). The season has already seen five major
hurricanes, double the long-term average for a season.

The average Atlantic season produces about 10 storms, of
which about six become hurricanes and two to three turn into
major hurricanes.

There was a 49 percent chance of a tropical storm or
hurricane hitting the U.S. coast in October, compared to a
long-term average of 29 percent, the CSU report said.

Gray said the factors that have contributed to recent busy
hurricane seasons, including warmer Atlantic sea surface
temperatures, lower surface pressures and low wind shear are
influencing this season.

But Gray downplayed the impact of human-induced global
warming on recent increases in Atlantic activity, which
included seven powerful hurricanes that hit the United States
in the last 14 months and an upswing in both hurricane
frequency and intensity in the last 11 years.

He attributed the increases to “long-period natural climate
alterations” that have occurred many times in the past.

“If global warming were the cause … we would expect to
see an increase in tropical cyclone activity in the other storm
basins as well, such as in the West Pacific, East Pacific and
Indian Ocean basins,” he said in a written statement. “This has
not occurred.”