Strong hurricanes to hit U.S. Gulf in 07: AccuWeather - Reuters

[Eugene]

Strong hurricanes to hit U.S. Gulf in 07: AccuWeather
Tue Mar 27, 2007 1:24 PM EDT

By Janet McGurty

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Gulf Coast, which is still rebuilding
almost two years after Hurricane Katrina, faces a renewed threat
of powerful storms this year, private forecaster AccuWeather said
on Tuesday.

After a quiet hurricane season last year, Florida and other Gulf Coast
states likely will be hit with fewer storms than during the active 2005
season, which spawned the massive hurricanes Katrina and Rita,
AccuWeather said.

But the storms forecast for the region will pack a punch.

"We will not get anywhere near the amount of storms that we did in
2005, but the intensity of the storms we do get will be of major concern,"
Joe Bastardi, chief hurricane forecaster for AccuWeather.com, said in a
statement.

British forecasting group Tropical Storm Risk this month also predicted
an active storm season. It forecast four "intense" hurricanes during the
2007 season, which runs from June through November.

-snip-

Read more: http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-03-27T172415Z_01_N27135018_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-USA-WEATHER-FORECAST-ACCUWEATHER-COL.XML

[seafan]

1. Hmmm. This is AccuWeather that Rick Santorum was touting....

Strong hurricanes to hit U.S. Gulf in 07: AccuWeather



Feds' weather information could go dark

By Robert P. King
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Thursday, April 21, 2005

Do you want a seven-day weather forecast for your ZIP code? Or hour-by-hour predictions of the temperature, wind speed, humidity and chance of rain? Or weather data beamed to your cellphone?
That information is available for free from the National Weather Service.
But under a bill pending in the U.S. Senate, it might all disappear.

The bill, introduced last week by Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., would prohibit federal meteorologists from competing with companies such as AccuWeather and The Weather Channel, which offer their own forecasts through paid services and free ad-supported Web sites.
Supporters say the bill wouldn't hamper the weather service or the National Hurricane Center from alerting the public to hazards — in fact, it exempts forecasts meant to protect "life and property."

But critics say the bill's wording is so vague they can't tell exactly what it would ban.
"I believe I've paid for that data once. ... I don't want to have to pay for it again," said Scott Bradner, a technical consultant at Harvard University.
He says that as he reads the bill, a vast amount of federal weather data would be forced offline.
"The National Weather Service Web site would have to go away," Bradner said. "What would be permitted under this bill is not clear — it doesn't say. Even including hurricanes."



The decision of what information to remove would be up to Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez — possibly followed, in the event of legal challenges, by a federal judge.
A spokesman for Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said the bill threatens to push the weather service back to a "pre-Internet era" — a questionable move in light of the four hurricanes that struck the state last year. Nelson serves on the Senate Commerce Committee, which has been assigned to consider the bill.

.....

"The weather service proved so instrumental and popular and helpful in the wake of the hurricanes. How can you make an argument that we should pull it off the Net now?" said Nelson's spokesman, Dan McLaughlin. "What are you going to do, charge hurricane victims to go online, or give them a pop-up ad?"
But Barry Myers, AccuWeather's executive vice president, said the bill would improve public safety by making the weather service devote its efforts to hurricanes, tsunamis and other dangers, rather than duplicating products already available from the private sector.

.....

Thank goodness Santorum is gone, but the beat-the-drum ideology of privatization rumbles on. It's time we stop it. From this day forward.

[Aviation Pro]

2. I agree with this way too early forecast.....

...the abatement of El Nino in May combined with insanely warm water temperatures in the Gulf, a positive cycle in the North Atlantic duo-decadal oscillation (don't ask), the upper air in the Atlantic, the end of drought conditions in Africa and the reduction of dust carried across the Atlantic is a deadly combination.

Batten the hatches.

[Bobbieo]

3. La Nina is on the way so watch out !!! Wish Santorum lived in FLA!

[Aviation Pro]

4. All the models are showing La Nina much later in the year...

...

[Gman]

5. I think La Nina will be later on in the year too

than the May timeframe currently mentioned. Reason is that over the last several days, we've had that plume or jet stream of Pacific moisture overhead until yesterday when a strong line of storms went through. The jet stream that comes in over Mexico and across Texas and/or New Mexico is a classic El Nino characteristic. The jet went away in February but returned a couple of weeks ago then over the last several days. It will set up again toward the end of this week. So I don't think El Nino is cooling off that fast, even though it has cooled considerably since the end of January, at least according to the data I've seen. Maybe it's firing back up again and won't go away this year like they say. It is very possible that the forecasts of La Nina could be wrong since we don't really understand the mechanisms that cause El Nino/La Nina.

[gulfcoastliberal]

6. Fuck accuweather. I'll wait for the NHC.

nt