Federal forecasters say wonky climate signals make it a tough year for hurricane predictions, but they reckon the Atlantic will most likely see a near-normal season in 2016.
Scientists with the national Climate Prediction Center said Friday there’s a 70 percent chance of 10-16 named storms this year, with four to eight of them spinning up into hurricanes with sustained winds of at least 74 mph.
Of those, one to four could become major blows with wind speeds of 111 mph or greater.
It’s impossible to predict this far out if any storms would make landfall.
“This is a more challenging hurricane season outlook than most because it’s difficult to determine whether there will be reinforcing or competing climate influences on tropical storm development,” the center’s lead forecaster, Gerry Bell, said in a statement. The center is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
That difficulty stems from signs that an El Niño weather pattern in the Pacific that suppresses hurricane formation is transitioning to a La Niña that favors it, and uncertainty over whether a lengthy phase of warmer Atlantic Ocean temperatures that can fuel hurricanes has been shifting to a cooler, low-activity phase.
Scientists say the season stands a 45 percent chance of being near normal, a 25 percent chance of below normal and a 30 percent chance of above normal.
Still, Bell said, a near-normal season suggests a more active season than the last three years, which saw below-normal activity.
The Atlantic season official begins Wednesday and runs through November. But this year the storms started especially early when a freak hurricane named Alex churned up in January.
Now a storm system is forming around Bermuda that forecasters say will likely accelerate into Tropical Storm Bonnie before Memorial Day Weekend is over. It could bring scattered showers and storms to Hampton Roads starting Sunday, meteorologists say.
In a normal season, the Atlantic will see 11 tropical storms and six hurricanes, two or three of them major ones.
Last year saw 12 storms and four hurricanes, two of them major.
Still, every year experts caution that the only number that matters is 1 — if it makes landfall in your area.
“It only takes one storm to seriously disrupt your life,” said Joseph Nimmich, deputy administrator at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Bill Sammler, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Wakefield, said the time to gather supplies and plan for a disruptive hurricane is now.
“When the weather is quiet is the time to start getting those supplies together,” Sammler said. “And this is true even for folks that are in a zone that wouldn’t be prone to storm surge. …They’re still going to be impacted by the wind, so the risk of power outages for an extended period of time still exists.”
The week leading up to Memorial Day is Virginia’s Hurricane Preparedness Week. Tips for what to do before, during and after a hurricane are available at readyvirginia.gov.
Forecasters at Colorado State University already issued their seasonal outlook, likewise predicting a near-normal season. But experts at North Carolina State University said they expect a more active one.
Dietrich can be reached by phone at 757-247-7892.
