NEW ORLEANS (CN) — Forecasters with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center are predicting above-average hurricane activity in 2022, for the seventh year in a row.
With hurricane season officially beginning next week, Tuesday's NOAA forecast, coupled with an already warm Loop Current, has coastal residents on edge.
Predictions for the Gulf Coast in particular are concerning as the Gulf of Mexico is already warmer than average for this time of year. Hurricanes feed off warmer water, which is why so many historically devastating hurricanes in the Northern Hemisphere have formed at the end of August or after.
La Niña, a weather pattern that involves changes in sea surface temperatures, has played a part in the last two busy hurricane seasons. In a favorable turn, the same weather pattern is keeping NOAA’s predictions for tropical cyclone activity this year in the Central Pacific lower than normal.
NOAA’s calculation for the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, which goes from June 1 through Nov. 30, gives a 65% probability for more hurricanes than an average year. The agency's predictions have about a 70% accuracy rate.
For this year's Atlantic season, the NOAA is forecasting a likely range of between 14 to 21 named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher), of which 6 to 10 could become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher), including 3 to 6 major hurricanes (category 3,4 or 5, with winds of 111 mph or higher).
Forecasters note a current of warm tropical water is already looping unusually far into the Gulf, which carries the potential for turning tropical storms into powerful hurricanes. This is called the Loop Current, and forecasters warn that currents that exist already before the hurricane season spell trouble for the Gulf coastline from Texas to Florida.
This year’s Loop Current curls up through the Yucatan Channel between Mexico and Cuba, into the Gulf of Mexico, and then swings back out through the Florida Straight south of Florida as the Florida Current, where it becomes the main contributor of the Gulf Stream.
When a tropical storm passes over the Loop Current, or over one of the large rotating pools of warm water that have broken from the current into giant eddies, the storm can potentially explode in strength, University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science oceanographer Nick Shay explained in a Monday report.
“I have been monitoring ocean heat content for more than 30 years as a marine scientist,” Shay wrote. “The conditions I’m seeing in the Gulf in May 2022 are cause for concern. One prominent forecast anticipates 19 tropical storms – 32% more than average – and nine hurricanes. The Loop Current has the potential to supercharge some of those storms.”
Hurricanes gain most of their power from surface waters, which generally extend about 100 feet deep, Shay said. If atmospheric conditions are right, waters above 78 degrees Fahrenheit can fuel hurricanes.
As hurricanes spin across the ocean’s surface waters, they can also mix with deeper, cool waters and lose strength. But the warm current, Shay said, can keep fueling the storm because it extends hundreds of feet deeper. If wind shear, dry air and other atmospheric conditions that weaken storms are absent and waters are hot enough, the deep supply of warm water can amp storms up enough to cause them to quickly intensify. Examples include Hurricane Michael in 2018, which rapidly charged up before landing on the Florida Panhandle as a Category 5 storm, and Ida in 2021, which as a powerful Category 4 tied with Hurricane Laura in 2020 as the strongest hurricane to ever make landfall in Louisiana.
The Loop Current is “the 800-pound gorilla of hurricane risks,” Shay said.
In mid-May, satellites showed 78-degree water extending about 300 feet deep in the current, according to Shay. By summer, he said that could extend to 500 feet.
When Ida powered up from a Category 1 hurricane to a monstrous Category 4 with 130 mph winds in just over 36 hours, Gulf waters hovered around 86 degrees while the Loop Current extended nearly 600 feet deep, Shay said.
Not only did Ida power up in time to barrel over New Orleans and the surrounding area, it continued to strengthen and affected multiple states.
“Hurricane Ida spanned nine states, demonstrating that anyone can be in the direct path of a hurricane and in danger from the remnants of a storm system,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said in the NOAA 2022 hurricane season prediction.
“Early preparation and understanding your risk is key to being hurricane resilient and climate-ready,” said Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo.
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