Hurricanes Back with a Vengeance

Boat/US Magazine, July, 1999

Now that El Nino is gone we now have to be concerned about his evil sister, La Nina, who has taken his place in the central Pacific. Her mass of cooler-than-normal ocean water temperatures now has the potential to disrupt global weather patterns to the same devastating extent that El Nino's abnormally warm waters did. And for boaters in hurricaneprone areas, that spells bad news.

The outlook for the 1999 hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, is not a pretty picture. Dr. Bill Gray, an expert on hurricanes at Colorado State University, predicts there will be 14 named tropical storms this year (average is 9), nine hurricanes (average is 5.8), with four of them intense hurricanes in the Category 3-5 range. "Evidence suggests that we have entered a new era of enhanced major hurricane activity," Gray says. He also predicts that there is a 72% chance of a major hurricane making landfall on the U.S. coastline this year.

The 1997-98 El Nino disruption actually suppressed hurricane activity in the Atlantic while the La Nina event now enhances it. La Nina already brought winter flooding, storms and heavy snow to the West Coast, a record freeze in Alaska and a warmer winter to the East. Scientists at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tracking La Nina say it's grown into one of the strongest events of the last 50 years.

The 1998 season goes on record as the deadliest in 200 years, mainly due to Category 5 Hurricane Mitch that killed an estimated 11,000 in Central America with thousands more missing. Bonnie, Earl, Georges, Frances and Mitch all made U.S. landfall, either in full force or downgraded to tropical storms, causing $3.2 billion in damage and 21 deaths in the U.S. There were 14 named storms last year and 10 hurricanes.

To get boaters up-to-date information, the BOAT/U.S. Web site has opened its own Hurricane Center at www.boatus.com/hurricanes with updated forecasts, advisories and damage prevention tips. Also available there is the free BOAT/U.S. Marine Insurance guide, "Hurricane Warming," with proper methods of preparing a boat for a hurricane. For more on La Nina and hurricanes, also see NOAA's Web sites at www.cpc.noaa.gov or www.nhc.noaa.gov.