2011 Hurricane forecasts begin
Posted by Neil Smith | Emerging Risk on Tuesday 12 April 2011, 4:58PM Share
With the Hurricane season rapidly approaching, it’s that time of year when forecasting teams put their reputations on the line and a stake in the ground in terms of predicting hurricane activity for the forthcoming June to November season.
This year there seems to be broad consensus that we’re in for another active season, although not as busy as last year.
The benchmark for seasonal Atlantic hurricane outlooks remains Colorado State University now under the leadership of Dr. Klotzbach, who took over the reins from Dr Bill Gray. The team at Colorado is predicting an active season of 16 named storms with nine hurricanes and five major hurricanes.
Other forecasts are not diverging far from this view. Tropical Storm Risk is expecting 14 named storms with between seven and eight hurricanes. And AccuWeather.com’s forecast of 15 named storms falls right in the middle of the Colorado and TSR forecasts, although it is predicting slightly fewer hurricanes (six with three major hurricanes).
The million (or billion) dollar question for the insurance industry is how many, if any, of these storms and hurricanes will make landfall in the US.
TSR offers a US landfall forecast of 1.9 (+/- 1.5), while CSU said there is a 72% probability that a major hurricane will make landfall in the United States and a 48% probability that a storm will strike the East Coast. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether we will be as fortunate as last year in avoiding any major hurricanes hitting the US coast.
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