---

The Old GP Home | GP³2K9 | GP[3]2K9 Stories and Pics | GP[3]2K9 Blog | Join our Yahoo! Groups GPpp eMailing List | and Phones List

---

SteveM's Swell Forecast for Guapo PaipoPridePalooza 2009

---

SteveM has provided annual wave and swell forecasts for prior years' GuidoPaloozas. He has provided another stupendous forecast  for the
Guapo PaipoPridePalooza - see below.

Hurricane Flash Stickers from The Weather Underground Tropical Pages

“Powered by hurricane-tracking software from Stormpulse.com.”

---

Dr. Gray's Tropical Meteorology Project makes annual prognostications. See the
annual hurricane prognostication.

GP '09 Wave Forecast by Steve "The Mind" Yes, it doesn't matter how pitiful the tropical season may be in terms of numbers. What matters is what the timing of those storms will be, even if only a few. With that in mind, the GP2K09, or whatever that lengthy name it is supposedly being officially called this year (this is the best tangentiation I can do at the moment...but I guess taking time to call this a tangentiation is a tangentiation in itself, thus making it an even better tangentiation!), will be subject to a fine tropical groundswell this year, with some head-high sets, but most importantly, regardless of the size, it will be clean and fun. Later, Steve "The Mind" Marshall August 9, 2009

US forecasters lower Atlantic hurricane outlook By Jennifer Kay, Associated Press Writer, Posted to Yahoo News Aug 6, 2009 MIAMI – The Atlantic hurricane season will be less active than originally predicted, government forecasters said Thursday after the first two months of the half-year stretch passed without any named storms developing. Updating its May outlook, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said a warmer weather pattern called an El Nino over the Pacific Ocean was acting as a damper to tropical storms in the Caribbean and neighboring Atlantic. But forecasters at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center in Washington warned people to remain vigilant because the peak period for hurricanes runs from this month through October. The overall season lasts from June through November. The updated forecast calls for a below-normal to near-normal season with seven to 11 named tropical storms, down from a range of nine to 14 in the May forecast. Three to six storms could become hurricanes, down from four to seven in the earlier forecast. The new projection says one or two hurricanes could become major storms, instead of one to three major hurricanes. Tropical storms get names when sustained wind speeds reach 39 mph. They become hurricanes when sustained winds reach 74 mph. Major hurricanes blow at 111 mph or more. The strongest hurricanes are labeled Category 5, with winds greater than 155 mph. So far this year, one tropical depression formed off Cape Hatteras, N.C., on May 28, four days before the official start of the season; it quickly fizzled and never threatened land. Researchers at Colorado State University also have lowered their forecast for the Atlantic season to 10 named storms, including four hurricanes, two of them major. The El Nino warming of the Pacific sea surface suppresses storm formation, said lead seasonal hurricane forecaster Gerry Bell. "El Nino produces stronger upper-level westerly winds over the Caribbean Sea and tropical Atlantic Ocean, which help to reduce hurricane activity by blowing away the tops of growing thunderstorm clouds that would normally lead to tropical storms," Bell said. Competing with El Nino, however, are conditions that mark an ongoing high-activity era that began in 1995, forecasters said. Those factors include enhanced rainfall over West Africa and warmer Atlantic water temperatures, which favor storm development. "By no means do we expect the season to be dead," Bell said. Hurricanes have struck the U.S. during previous El Ninos, including Camille in 1969, a Category 5 storm, Betsy in 1965, Bob in 1991 and Lili in 2002. A calm start doesn't mean the rest of the season will stay quiet, forecasters warned. The first storm of the 1992 season — a below-normal year — did not form until late August. But Hurricane Andrew leveled parts of South Florida when it roared ashore as a Category 5 storm. The 2004 season also had a slow start. By the time it was over, Florida alone had suffered strikes from four separate hurricanes, one of which also caused 3,000 deaths in Haiti. "It only takes one storm to put a community at risk," said Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate. "That is why we need to take action and prepare ourselves and our families before the next storm hits, including developing a family disaster plan." The first storm of this year in the Atlantic, Caribbean or Gulf of Mexico will be named Ana, followed by Bill, Claudette and Danny. By this time last year, there had been five named storms, including two hurricanes. In all of 2008, there were 16 named storms, including eight hurricanes. About 1,000 people lost their lives, mostly in flash flooding in the Caribbean. Gas prices spiked last summer when hurricanes Gustav and Ike slammed into the nation's energy complex in the Gulf of Mexico. In the Pacific, six named storms, including three hurricanes, have developed so far this year. Hurricane Felicia, a Category 4 storm, was expected to weaken Thursday as it moves over colder water far out in the Pacific. Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Enrique maintained its strength with sustained winds near 50 mph about 1,035 miles west of the southern tip of Baja California. Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog Late-starting hurricane seasons Posted by: JeffMasters, 10:01 AM EDT on July 29, 2009        There are no threat areas in the Atlantic worthy of mention today, but the GFS model is pointing to the possibility that a tropical wave off the coast of Africa could develop this weekend. However, none of the other models are predicting this, and the previous run of the GFS model did not develop anything. So, any development in the tropics this week looks unlikely. The hurricane season of 2009 is off to a slow start, and it will be August before our first named storm appears. How does this late-starting hurricane season compare to other years? Well, the first named storm of the year didn't occur until August in ten of the past fifty years (20%). Only two of these ten seasons ended up with more hurricanes than average (seven or greater). The record for the latest starting hurricane season since 1851 was set in 1914, when the only storm of the season formed on September 15. The year 1941 was also late starting, with the season's first storm arriving on September 11. Of course, we didn't have satellites back then, so it's a good bet there were storms earlier in these seasons that got missed. However, there's a good possibility that 1914 really did have only one storm. A re-analysis of the hurricane activity in the decade1911-1920 (Landsea et al., 2008) found 1.3 missing tropical cyclones per year, thanks to the inclusion of a new database of ship weather reports called COADS. However, 1914 was not one of those years. Various authors have estimated that we missed an average of between one and three tropical cyclones per year during that time period, so it is quite possible 1914 had only one storm. The latest dates for the first named storm of the season in the recent past, followed by the number of named storms, hurricanes, and intense hurricanes that year are: 2004 (August 1) 15,9,6 2000 (August 4) 15,8,3 1988 (August 7) 12,6,3 1987 (August 9) 7,3,1 1984 (August 18) 13,5,1 1983 (August 15) 4,2,11 1977 (August 30) 6,5,1 1967 (August 30) 8,6,2 1963 (August 2) 9,6,2 1962 (August 22) 5,3,1 For comparison, an average Atlantic hurricane season has 10 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 2 intense hurricanes. So, it is a good bet that 2009 will be a below-average season. We have two experimental seasonal forecast models that agree with this idea--the UKMET Glosea models, which is forecasting only six named storms this year, and the newly-released Florida State University Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies (COAPS) model, which is forecasting eight named storms and four hurricanes. The Phil Klotzbach/Bill Gray Colorado State University seasonal forecast updates on Tuesday August 4, and it will be interesting to see what forecast numbers they come up with.

---

 

The GuidoPalooza Page

The GP32K9 Page

Rod's Home Page