The news wires are carrying a snyopsis of the fumbled ‘06 hurricane season forecast out of Colorado State:
A late El Nino this year confounded hurricane forecasters’ predictions for the Atlantic storm season, which turned out to be much quieter than normal, hurricane expert William Gray’s team said Friday.[...]
“A variety of factors interact with each other to cause year-to-year and month-to-month hurricane variability,” Klotzbach said in the statement. “It is impossible to understand how all these processes interact with each other to 100 percent certainty.”
It’s worth remembering that the Colorado State forecasts have only been directionally accurate (i.e. “above normal” vs “below normal”) about 75% of the time.
Considering what the 2005 season was like, it’s understandable that any vaguely credible hurricane forecast is going to draw media attention. However, that doesn’t excuse the folks involved from reminding casual readers of the variability inherent in such forecasts.
Great blog! Yeah, come to think of it, what happened to all the hurricanes this year. I thought the world was supposed to end.