In the past couple of days, and also weeks, Texas has been slammed with flooding rains and a very powerful storm packing both tornados and downbursts that brought down office building windows in Houston. Meanwhile, strong storms and tornados have blasted through the Midwest and the "northern" Southeast, including Kentucky, Tennessee, northern Alabama and northern Georgia. Driving these storms is above-normal heat, higher-than-normal Gulf of Mexico temperatures, and increased moisture in the atmosphere.
All of which makes this predictive article from the New York Times a couple of weeks ago a bit more alarming. Oh look -- it's even in the headline!
‘Alarming’ Ocean Temperatures Suggest This Hurricane Season Will Be a Daunting One" It’s the Colorado State researchers’ biggest April prediction ever, by a healthy margin, said Dr. Klotzbach. While things could still play out differently, he said he was more confident than he normally would be this early in the year. All the conditions that he and other researchers look at to forecast the season, such as weather patterns, sea surface temperatures and computer model data, are pointing in one direction.
“Normally, I wouldn’t go nearly this high,” he said, but with the data he’s seeing, “Why hedge?”
If anything, he said, his numbers are on the conservative side, and there are computer models that indicate even more storms on the way."
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