Community Corner

Start Prepping: Atlantic Hurricane Season Underway

A busy hurricane season is expected with water temperatures in parts of the Atlantic Ocean already warmer than normal.

Written by Neil Johnson and Lanning Taliaferro

As we face what could be another busy hurricane season, Patch embarks on an intermittent Storm Prep series to keep you informed and up-to-date.

"Hurricane season." 

Time was, folks in New York thought of hurricane season, mostly, with a mild interest in the year's names and a pious hope that it wouldn't affect their vacations or their relatives in Florida. 

However, after Irene and Sandy, we're thinking in a whole new dimension. 

Lucky there's an app for that. 

The American Red Cross urges residents to download the free Hurricane app for their mobile devices. 

"It’s amazing and  provides real-time hurricane safety information such as weather alerts and where Red Cross shelters are located," said Mary Young, American Red Cross Metro New York North CEO.

The app also features a toolkit with a flashlight, strobe light and alarm, and the one-touch “I’m Safe” button which lets someone use social media outlets to tell family and friends they are okay. The app can be found in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store for Android by searching for American Red Cross, she said.

It's a good thing to get now: The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 through Nov. 30 from Texas to Maine, hitting its peak in the summer around mid-August through mid-October when most storms form off the African coast and trudge across the Atlantic. 
2013 is expected to be busy, with water temperatures in parts of the Atlantic Ocean already warmer than normal.

Colorado State University researchers William Gray and Phil Klotzbach issued their first prediction of the 2013 season on April 10 and called for 18 named storms with nine growing into hurricanes and four reaching Category 3 with winds more than 111 mph.

If their prediction holds, 2013 would be only slightly less active than 2012 which had 19 named storms, 10 hurricanes and two major hurricanes. An average season has 12 named storms, six hurricanes and three major storms.

The number of storms, though, doesn’t matter as much as where they go and no seasonal forecast can predict that, said Dennis Feltgen, National Hurricane Center spokesman.

“If you have 100 storms or one, if that one storm hits you, that’s the storm you have to be prepared for,” he said. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will issue its first season outlook May 23.

Though hurricanes occur any time during the season, states on the Gulf of Mexico are more at risk during roughly the first six weeks as most storms in June and early July form in the western Caribbean Sea.

The storm conveyor belt in the Atlantic gets active August through mid October as tropical waves move off Africa into the cradle of hurricanes near the Cape Verde Islands where Gray and Klotzbach say water temperatures are already several degrees above normal.

Warm water is fuel for hurricanes.

Most Atlantic-bred storms curve northeast around the Bermuda High before hitting the United States, Feltgen said.

“If there’s a weakness in the high, they can move on and hit Florida or elsewhere,” he said.

By the season’s final six weeks, storm genesis returns to the Caribbean and Gulf but that doesn’t erase the threat for Eastern Seaboard states or New England.

Hurricane Sandy which killed 147 people, bulldozed miles of coastline and caused $250 billion in damage, formed in the southern Caribbean in late October, a sign of hurricanes’ unpredictable nature.

Could there be another Sandy in 2013? "We don’t know,” Feltgen said. “Will we get another Sandy in the future? Yes.”


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