S.C. officials wary as hurricane season settles in

Bertha could become first Atlantic hurricane of the season

By WAYNE WASHINGTON - wwashington@thestate.com

With summer now in full swing, the watch for hurricanes is intensifying in South Carolina, especially with an unusually busy season predicted for this year.

However, S.C. emergency preparedness officials do not rely on those predictions. And for good reason: Seasonal hurricane predictions have not improved in accuracy in the past 25 years.

“As far as, ‘Do the numbers have any influence on what we do to get prepared or how we get ready?’ The answer is, ‘No,’” said Cathy Haynes, director of emergency preparedness in Charleston County.

“The numbers are a good guide as to the activity of the season, but we prepared for the one that could potentially strike South Carolina. It only takes one storm striking South Carolina to make it an active season for South Carolina.”

Officials at the S.C. Emergency Management Division see things much the same way. They say they have not altered their preparations because of the predictions of a busy season.

“We always prepare,” said Joe Farmer, public information director for the S.C. Emergency Management Division. “Hurricane Hugo hit South Carolina in a season when it wasn’t that active. The lesson of that for us is to always be prepared.”

The Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University — perhaps the best-known hurricane predictor in the country — has said there will be 15 named storms this year in the Atlantic basin, which includes the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

The project also said there is a 69 percent probability that at least one major storm — one with wind speeds of 111 mph or higher — will make landfall along the U.S. coast. There is a 45 percent probability that such a storm will make landfall somewhere along the East Coast, according to project forecasts.

Such landfall prognostications are a matter of dispute in the weather scientific community. Some experts think it is not possible to say how many storms will make landfall because they are guided by the weather patterns that exist at a particular time.

Phil Klotzbach, a research scientist at the Tropical Meteorology Project, said his group doesn’t issue landfall predictions.

“We issue landfall probabilities,” he said. “There is a big difference. Obviously, no one can say months in advance when or where a storm is going to strike. Our probabilities simply state that the odds of landfall go up in active years and down in inactive years.”

Storms with counterclockwise circulation are given a name when their wind speeds reach 39 mph.

Tropical Storm Arthur, which formed in late May and soaked the Central American nation of Belize before fizzling, was the first named storm of this season.

A second tropical storm, Bertha, recently formed off the western coast of Africa and is moving west in the Atlantic Ocean. Some National Hurricane Center forecast models suggest Bertha will become the first Atlantic hurricane of the season.

The Climate Prediction Center, a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has predicted that 12 to 16 named storms will develop this year.

Weather experts at the Tropical Meteorology Project and the Climate Prediction Center have had years of great accuracy.

The Climate Prediction Center predicted 13 to 17 named storms in 2007, when 15 named storms formed. The center was also on the mark in 2002, when it predicted the formation of nine to 13 named storms and 12 developed.

The Tropical Meteorology Project accurately predicted the number of named storms in 1985, 1991 and 2004.

But there have been years of great inaccuracy as well.

For example, the Tropical Meteorology Project followed up a perfect prognostication of named storms in 2004 with big misses in 2005 and 2006 before coming closer to the mark last year.

Neither group of weather experts predicted the cataclysmic 2005 season.

The Climate Protection Center’s range that year called for 12 to 15 named storms. The Tropical Meteorology Project’s prediction was 15 storms.

A record 27 storms formed in 2005, including Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which devastated parts of the Gulf Coast.

The number of named storms has fallen within the range predicted by the Climate Prediction Center in three of the six years such ranges were offered.

Klotzbach said “the art of seasonal prediction has improved over the past 25 years.”

But the project’s predictions from 20-plus years ago were more accurate than some of its more recent ones.

From 1984 to 1988, the project’s seasonal predictions were off by an average of just more than a storm a year.

Since 2004, the predictions have been off by more than five storms a season, largely as a result of the big miss in 2005.

“We certainly learn a lot when our forecasts don’t verify well,” Klotzbach said.

Hurricane Hugo, which struck just north of Charleston in 1989, remains a vivid and painful lesson for S.C. emergency preparedness officials.

The Tropical Meteorology Project predicted the formation of seven storms in 1989, but 11 developed. One — Hugo — killed dozens and caused billions in damage, much of it in the Lowcountry.

“These predictions are interesting,” Farmer said. “They help to make people aware that hurricane season is approaching, and we appreciate that.

“But when it comes to hurricane season and preparedness, we max out.”

Reach senior writer Wayne Washington at (803) 771-8385.