El Nino may put a damper on the 2018 hurricane season, with The Weather Channel and Colorado State University's Tropical Meteorology Project now predicting a less active storm season.
The Weather Channel reported El Nino weather conditions are expected to take over in the fall, a few months earlier than previous forecasts predicted.
According to Live Science, El Nino conditions – when trade winds blow toward the west across the tropical Pacific, away from South America – create stronger wind-shear and more-stable air over the Atlantic, making it harder for hurricanes to form there.
Michael Lowry, an atmospheric scientists with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, noted that wind shear over the Caribbean Sea was abnormally strong in June, taking on the overall look of a hurricane season feeling the effects of a developing El Niño, TWC said.
Colorado State's renewed forecast released on Monday is now predicting there will be 11 named storms in the Atlantic, including May's Subtropical Storm Alberto, with just one major hurricane, a Category 3 or above, TWC said.
In April, Colorado State was predicting 14 named storms during the Atlantic hurricane season, with seven becoming hurricanes, three of those major.
"The tropical and subtropical Atlantic is currently much colder than normal, and the odds of a weak El Niño developing in the next several months have increased," the university's Tropical Meteorology Project said in a news release. "With the decrease in our forecast, the probability for major hurricanes making landfall along the United States coastline and in the Caribbean has decreased as well.”
"As is the case with all hurricane seasons, coastal residents are reminded that it only takes one hurricane making landfall to make it an active season for them. They should prepare the same for every season, regardless of how much activity is predicted."
The Weather Channel pointed out that there were only four named storms in 1983, but one of those, Hurricane Alicia, slammed the Houston-Galveston area causing as many direct fatalities as Category 5 Hurricane Andrew did in South Florida in 1992.
By comparison, 2010 was particularly active with 19 named stories and 12 hurricanes but none of those storms made landfall in the United States, TWC noted.
The University of Arizona hurricane forecasting model that was the most accurate for 2017, was already predicting the least activity in 2018, with four hurricanes, two of them major. That model also happens to have been extremely accurate over the last four years.
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