Hang on to your plywood and bottled water: One of the nation's leading hurricane forecasters is predicting yet another harried season - and an especially scary one for the U.S. East Coast, including Florida."The odds of a major hurricane making landfall along the East Coast are more than twice the climatological average value this year," wrote a team of hurricane researchers led by William Gray of Colorado State University. Those odds are increased by factors such as the recent weak La Nina pattern of cold water in the eastern Pacific.
Gray and his associate, Phil Klotzbach, also predicted that the season will produce sharply more storms than average, for yet another year, though not as outlandish as last year's record total of 28 storms.
Their forecast calls for a total of 17 named storms this year - far above the average of 9.6. They also predicted nine hurricanes, versus an average of 5.9, and five major hurricanes of Category 3 or higher strength (the average count for those is 2.3). Last year produced 15 hurricanes, an all-time record, including a near-record seven major storms.
The predicted storm totals are the same that Gray and Klotzbach have been reporting since December.
But their predicted odds of hurricane landfalls are especially disquieting.
Florida and the U.S. East Coast have a 94 percent chance of being hit by any storm this year - and a 69 percent chance of suffering a blow from a major hurricane, Gray and Klotzbach wrote. In an average year, that region would have an 81 percent chance of being hit by any storm, and ony a 31 percent chance of a major hurricane strike.
"For the Gulf Coast, landfall probabilities are above the climatological average; however, they are not as high as those for the East Coast," Gray and Klotzbach wrote.
On the Web:
• Gray's official forecast site
