THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 7, 1996 TAG: 9606070440
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 64 lines
The 1996 Atlantic hurricane season shouldn't be as bad as last year's - unless one of the six storms the nation's top hurricane forecaster is predicting hits your home.
And even if none hit land this season, the long-range outlook is grim.
``In the next 10 to 30 years, we're due for an upswing'' in hurricane activity, especially ``in major land-falling storms - and they do about 75 percent of the damage,'' said William Gray, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Colorado State University.
``It's a very ominous future look,'' Gray said Thursday as he issued the revised seasonal forecast. ``Because of the build-up along the coast and the many more people living in these areas, we could see hurricane destruction like we have never seen it before.''
Gray, whose intricate formula for forecasting hurricanes has won him worldwide respect, has been right far more often than he has been wrong in the last decade.
Last year, for instance, he forecast an especially busy season and missed the mark only slightly. It was even busier than he had anticipated, with 11 hurricanes, five of which became major storms. It was the second most active hurricane season since 1933.
One of last year's hurricanes, Opal, caused millions of dollars in damage in Florida and Georgia.
Gray is forecasting a relatively normal hurricane season this year in the Atlantic. He expects that 10 named tropical storms, with winds of at least 39 mph, will form between now and the end of hurricane season in November.
He is calling for six of those to intensify into hurricanes with sustained winds of 74 mph or higher. And, of those, he expects two will become major hurricanes with winds exceeding 111 mph.
Such hurricanes are capable of causing extensive damage.
Based on data from the past century, the average hurricane season yields 9.3 tropical storms and a half-dozen hurricanes. But the historical record also reveals decades-long cycles in which there are many more storms than average and others in which numbers are below normal.
Gray believes we are coming out of a relatively quiet period and are about to witness a surge.
``We know these storms go in cycles, particularly the major storms,'' Gray said. ``We know that from the late 1940s to the late 1960s, we had many more intense storms out there and more land-falling ones than we have had in the last 25 years.''
It's possible that last year's busier-than-normal season signaled the change to more activity, Gray said. But even if it was a fluke, ``I think that return is coming pretty soon,'' he said.
``We were very lucky last year,'' Gray said. ``Opal came in and did a lot of damage. . . . But when you consider the number of intense storms we had, and the overall activity last year, the amount of land-falling activity was down, really.''
The major factor in that was a persistent trough of low pressure off the Southeast coast that steered many storms away from the mainland. ``We don't know if we'll be that lucky this year,'' Gray said.
The only big storm to threaten the mid-Atlantic coast last year - Felix - appeared to be on a collision course with Hampton Roads and Northeast North Carolina. But then it stalled about 400 miles offshore and meandered for three days before finally moving safely to the northeast.
Gray and his research team use a variety of global weather factors to produce the seasonal forecasts, issued four times a year. The final revision for this season will come in early August, when peak hurricane activity usually begins. by CNB