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Hurricane Wrap-up
Thu Dec 04, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton for The Weather Notebook. Last Sunday marked the end of this year's
action-packed hurricane season. But as correspondent Bob Henson tells us, some folks are
already thinking about 2004.
When the tropics calm down for the winter, millions of people take a deep breath and relax.
Then there's the hurricane forecast squad. December is when Bill Gray's team at Colorado State
University issues its first long-range outlook for next year's Atlantic season. They've done
this every holiday season for 12 years. Last year the team made some changes, according to
CSU's Phil Klotzbach.
PK: We recently developed a new statistical scheme that we're really excited about. We
started issuing that this past year, December of 2002, and it looks like our early December
forecast is going to turn out to be pretty good.
The team looks at six types of weather conditions over the last several months and how they
might affect next year's hurricane crop. These factors include the sea-level pressure across
parts of the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico, the upper-level conditions over the western U.S.
and Greenland, and the stratospheric winds across the tropical Atlantic. Each one of these is
weighted based on how strongly it relates to hurricanes over the last 50 years. So who needs
a forecast this far in advance, anyway?
PK: Possibly insurance agencies, and groups like that. They want to kind of to get an idea
as what their premiums are going to be for the following year. It just kind of gives people a
heads up, an early heads-up, as to what the season's looking like.
What about 2004? Bill Gray and company bring out their crystal ball this Friday, December 5.
Stay tuned.
The Weather Notebook is funded by grants from The National Science Foundation, and Subaru,
Driven By What's Inside. We are produced by The Mount Washington Observatory, online at
www.mountwashington.org.
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