Potent trade winds that guided ships across the Atlantic when sails and Mother Nature set global agendas are expected to slacken in the face of a rising El Niño, a shift that slashes the chances of hurricane ruination this season.
From the Gulf Coast marshes of Texas to the northern reaches of Maine, the odds that a hurricane makes landfall during an El Niño year are 55% compared to 89% when its storm-encouraging counterpart La Niña awakens.
In the oft-battered Sunshine State, hurricane landfall chances with El Niño are 23% compared to 49% during La Niña.
There is just a 12% chance that a bruising Category 3 hurricane or stronger breaches Florida shores during El Niño, about half of the 23% chance when La Niña is present.
“There are a couple of reasons why landfalls go down during El Niño,” said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach, who presented the landfall data at the Governor’s Hurricane Conference on May 15. “You really knock down the number of Caribbean storms, and just the environment overall is a lot harsher.”
Hurricane season begins June 1 and runs through Nov. 30.
This year, conditions are ripening for El Niño with the Climate Prediction Center calling for an 82% chance that the periodic climate shift will appear in the next month.
Westerly gales that dominate the trade winds during El Niño work to tear apart storms forming in the runway between Africa and the U.S., meaning fewer chances for the robust Cabo Verde-style tropical cyclones to gain purchase.
Also, the Bermuda-Azores area of high pressure tends to be weaker during El Niño. It shrinks to more easterly realms of the Atlantic, flinging storms that do form out to sea before they reach the U.S.
Alex DaSilva, lead hurricane forecaster for AccuWeather, agreed that the Bermuda High may sit a bit farther south and east this season.
But he’s also giving higher odds that if something does form and sneak past El Niño guardrails, that areas from Tampa through New Orleans have higher risks of “significant tropical impacts.” AccuWeather has also pegged areas from Virginia Beach through Charleston with having higher storm risks this season.
“In Florida, I would say the Panhandle has the highest risk with the rest of the state about average,” DaSilva said. “There tends to be a stronger sub-tropical jet stream with more steering west to east.”
That means when storms get into the Gulf of Mexico, which is referred to as the Gulf of America by the U.S. government, they head toward the northeastern Gulf Coast.
AccuWeather looked at previous years that had a similar atmospheric set up to what’s happening currently in making its seasonal hurricane forecast. Those included 2009, 2014, 2018, which was when Category 5 Hurricane Michael made landfall near Mexico Beach in Florida’s Panhandle. The year 2023 was also used as an analog year, which was when Hurricane Idalia made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 3 storm.
Idalia was the only hurricane to make a U.S. landfall that year, which was also an unusual season where El Niño battled storm-nourishing sea surface temperatures that were record warm.
This year, Klotzbach called Atlantic Ocean temperatures a “mixed bag” with no record warmth to stoke storm prowess.
University of Miami associate scientist Andy Hazelton said the sea surface temperatures have gotten “quite unfavorable” for hurricane activity.
“Even without the strong El Niño developing, this setup would probably indicate an average season at best,” he said in a May 17 social media post.
Colorado State University released its 43rd annual seasonal hurricane forecast on April 9 calling for a slightly below normal season with 13 named storms and six hurricanes. Of the six hurricanes, two are forecast to escalate to 111 mph Category 3 storms or higher.
An average hurricane season has 14 named storms and seven hurricanes, of which three become major hurricanes.
Klotzbach said in addition to the seasonal forecasts, his team has been doing more analysis on how landfalls are affected by what’s happening in the atmosphere. While steering winds, and even the Bermuda High, can be transient features that are hard to forecast weeks in advance, there are patterns emerging based on other factors such as El Niño, he said.
The biggest differences are in the reduction in the number of major hurricane landfalls during El Niño years. The chances that any named storm, including tropical storms, will hit varies less for Florida at 63% during El Niño and 75% during La Niña.
Nationally, there’s a 94% chance a named storm will make landfall during El Niño compared to a 99% chance with La Niña.
“It’s an odds game,” Klotzbach said. “The odds go down but they’re not zero.”
Kimberly Miller is a journalist for the USA TODAY NETWORK FLORIDA. She covers weather, the environment and critters as the Embracing Florida reporter. If you have news tips, please send them to kmiller@pbpost.com. You can get all of Florida’s best content directly in your inbox each weekday by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY, at palmbeachpost.com/newsletters.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: El Niño lowers Florida’s major hurricane odds to 12% this season
Reporting by Kimberly Miller, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Palm Beach Post
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