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Colorado State University hurricane researchers announced Thursday that they are predicting an active Atlantic hurricane season in 2022, citing the likely absence of El Niño as a primary factor.
According to the release, Tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures are near their long-term averages, while Caribbean and subtropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures are warmer than their long-term averages. The warmer Caribbean and eastern part of the subtropical Atlantic also favor an active 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, said CSU, among the most reputable organizations relative to weather pattern predictions.
The tropical Pacific currently has weak La Niña conditions, that is, water temperatures are somewhat cooler than normal in the eastern and central tropical Pacific. While La Niña may weaken and transition to neutral conditions by this summer, the CSU researchers do not currently anticipate El Niño for the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season. El Niño tends to increase upper-level westerly winds across the Caribbean into the tropical Atlantic, tearing apart hurricanes as they try to form.
CSU said that while tropical Atlantic water temperatures are currently near their long-term averages, the warmer-than-normal subtropical eastern Atlantic typically forces a weaker subtropical high and associated weaker winds blowing across the tropical Atlantic. These conditions then lead to warmer waters in the tropical Atlantic for the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season.
19 named storms
The CSU Tropical Meteorology Project team is predicting 19 named storms during the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. Of those, researchers expect nine to become hurricanes and four to reach major hurricane strength (Saffir/Simpson category 3-4-5) with sustained winds of 111 miles per hour or greater.
So far, the 2022 hurricane season is exhibiting characteristics similar to 1996, 2000, 2001, 2008, 2012 and 2021, CSU said. “Our analog seasons generally exhibited near- to somewhat above-normal Atlantic hurricane activity,” said Phil Klotzbach, research scientist in the CSU Department of Atmospheric Science and lead author of the report.
The team predicts that 2022 hurricane activity will be about 130 percent of the average season from 1991-2020. By comparison, 2021’s hurricane activity was about 120 percent of the average season. The 2021 hurricane season had eight continental U.S. named storm and two continental U.S. landfalling hurricanes, including Category 4 Hurricane Ida which battered the central Gulf Coast and then brought devastating flooding to the mid-Atlantic and northeast US.
As always, the researchers caution coastal residents to take proper precautions. “It takes only one storm near you to make this an active season,” Bell said.
Landfall probability
The report also includes the probability of major hurricanes making landfall:
71% for the entire U.S. coastline (average for the last century is 52%)
47% for the U.S. East Coast including the Florida peninsula (average for the last century is 31%)
46% for the Gulf Coast from the Florida panhandle westward to Brownsville (average for the last century is 30%)
60% for the Caribbean (average for the last century is 42%)
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