2010 CSU Hurricane Outlooks

  - Newark exceeds 90°F four days in a row this past weekend - never even hinted at by models last week.....

  - Heat anomalies swinging between AZ-GA zone to TX-NY zone focus for June.....

  - Heavy rains to continue for Upper Midwest this week.....

~ Despite low confidence & model confusion, NWS Outlooks to continue depiction trend of Warm South & East............

  - Note: Mid-Day "Nooner" runs have operational biases and mean-reversion that can be charted out weeks ahead of time.....

  - ENSO & Vendor "Analogs" did not account Northwest & High Plains coolness, and this bias carrying into June.....

~ PHET grazed eastern Oman and moved into Pakistan..........

  - For USA, SUB-Tropical entities tend to form near North America, and early season Tropical storm development focus in Caribbean this year.....

  - Since 1934, Atlantic had >16 Tropical Storms only 3 times, and >19 only in 2005, so be wary of wild estimates.....

2010 CSU Hurricane Outlooks:

Despite some fanatical proclamations which sprout every year, there is quality tropical research and statistical predictions emanating from a variety of legitimate scientific entities.  Over the past decade, the most popular and widely heralded of these "Hurricane Forecasts", has come out of Colorado State University [CSU], more commonly coined simply "Dr. Gray's Forecast" (referring to Professor Emeritus Dr. William Gray who headed the Tropical Team).  Dr. Gray has partially moved on to other climate projects, and now Dr. Klotzbach heads the team responsible for what is still the benchmark of Seasonal Atlantic Hurricane Outlooks. 

On Wednesday June 2nd, they issued their second Hurricane Season Forecast of 2010.  Below, is their official forecast preceded by our best estimate of the key numbers they would declare (along side historical averages):

                              60-Year              Weather 2000's

                         Long-Term Average:  ANTICIPATED CSU Forecast:  ACTUAL CSU Forecast:

Named Storms                    9.6                     18                     18                  

Hurricanes                      5.9                      9                     10                          

Intense Hurricanes              2.3                      5                      5                    

TORNADO SEASON DASH-BOARD [06/08]:

~ Preliminary Tornadoes Year-to-date: 650

    - Average Tornadoes Year-to-date: 825

~ Preliminary Tornado Fatalities Year-to-date: 24

    - Average Tornado Fatalities Year-to-date: 70

ENSO STATUS DASH-BOARD [06/08]:

~ ENSO Status: The 2009-2010 El Niño Episode of Modoki character is nearly over.....

~ ONI: +0.6 [Need ONI (not weekly values) > +0.5 to satisfy minimum El Niño event criterion.]

~ NINO 3.4 SSTA Monthly Trend: Fading, but talk of quick flip to Intense La Niña Event are over-exaggerated.

HURRICANE SEASON DASH BOARD [06/08]:

~ SSTA: Much Above Normal*

    - GOM, Gulf Stream, Northern Caribbean, MDR, Central  Atlantic

~ Development Risk (in coming week): Moderate

  - Tails of fronts/troughs near GOM; Caribbean

* Tropical Storms only require ocean temperatures above 75°F to form (even cooler for Sub-Tropical formation), and such temperatures are plentiful throughout the entire Atlantic Basin.   More technically, for the past 18 months we have been tracking the elevated iron ore concentrations being deposited via African Dust across the Atlantic, which can contributing to steep SST escalations across the GOM & MDR are the Season progresses [by lowering Specific Heat Capacity requirements of basins].