TSR predicts active 2006 Atlantic hurricane season

The United States and the Caribbean should brace themselves for yet another busy Atlantic hurricane season in 2006, according to Tropical Storm Risk (TSR), a forecasting consortium.TSR predicts landfalling hurricane activity in the United States and the Atlantic basin during the 2006 season will be 60% above the norm for 1950-2000. “The two main climate factors influencing the TSR hurricane forecast for 2006 are the expected values in August and September for the speed of trade winds which blow westward across the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean Sea and the temperature of the sea waters between west Africa and the Caribbean, where many hurricanes develop,” the TSR said in a press release. “The former influences cyclonic vorticity (the spinning up of storms) while the latter provides heat and moisture to power incipient storms.”TSR anticipates weaker than normal trade winds and warmer than normal waters on 2006: conditions which both favor an above-average hurricane season.”Professor Mark Saunders, TSR’s lead scientist, counsels against over-reacting to the exceptional losses from the Gulf of Mexico in 2005. “Despite the forecast for yet another active hurricane season in 2006, the chance of seeing as many as five intense hurricanes in the Gulf (as happened in 2005) is extremely remote,” he says. “No other year since 1950 has recorded more than two intense Gulf hurricanes. Thus, despite the forecast, we are most unlikely to see a repeat of the Gulf devastation witnessed in 2005.”TSR’s long-range forecast predicts 16 tropical storms for the Atlantic basin as a whole, with eight being hurricanes and four being intense hurricanes. TSR predicts five tropical storm strikes on the United States in 2006, two of which will be hurricanes.