U.S. is gearing up for a busy hurricane season this year. Here’s why

Atmospheric scientists from Colorado State University and Florida State University, along with hurricane experts from AccuWeather, say the 2022 hurricane season could be very similar to last year’s season – the third most active hurricane season on record.

In other words, most of the long-range models agree that the United States will experience a busy hurricane season in 2022.

This is one reason why.

La Niña, the cooling of the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, is forecast to strengthen through this year and possibly into the first part of 2023.

La Niña typically tends to drive the storm track (jet stream) well north of where hurricanes often form and intensify in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.

This condition reduces the amount of wind shear in the mid and upper troposphere, allowing these tropical cyclones to flourish if the sea surface temperatures are warm enough.

El Niño typically reduces hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin. As the jet stream tracks further south, it creates wind shear in the upper atmosphere, disrupting hurricane formation.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 each year, with the peak on or about Sept. 10. The Eastern Pacific hurricane season runs a little longer, from May 15 to Nov. 30.

The seawater temperatures must be at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit (26.7 Celsius) or greater for these storms to strengthen.

That’s why it’s rare for tropical cyclones to reach the California coastline. Nevertheless, it does happen.

In 1939, a tropical storm slammed into Long Beach with gale-force winds and torrential rains. Mount Wilson reported 11.6 inches of rain in 24 hours.

Forty-five people in the Los Angeles area drowned due to the resultant flood, and high seas and winds took 48 souls at sea.

What’s the difference between a cyclone, hurricane or typhoon?

Once one of these storms reach a sustained wind speed of 74 mph or greater, it is classified as a hurricane, typhoon or cyclone. The only difference between a cyclone, hurricane or typhoon is the location where the storm is formed.

The term “hurricane” is used in the Atlantic and northeast Pacific oceans.

In the northwest Pacific, it’s called a typhoon and cyclones happen in the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean.

The first person to name tropical cyclones was Clement Lindley Wragge of Queensland, Australia, in the late 1800s.

Wragge had an inclement temper, and he took to naming cyclones after politicians who he disliked.

A forecaster could publicly describe a storm named after a politician as “wandering about the Pacific with no aim or purpose.”

Can scientists prevent or weaken hurricanes?

That leads to the question: Is there some way to prevent the genesis of a hurricane? Or, if one does develop, is there a way to change its course or weaken it?

At this point, it’s more cost-effective to relocate homes and businesses to areas that don’t have a high vulnerability to such storms and rising sea levels due to climate change, but that may change.

Scientists and engineers have worked on technologies to reduce the threat over the years.

The U.S. government program called Stormfury tried to weaken hurricanes by using cloud seeding with silver iodide flares mounted on aircraft, but it had very little success and has since been abandoned.

Another idea was to coat the ocean with a Jell-O-like substance or gigantic-sized rolls of plastic wrap to reduce evaporation from the ocean’s surface.

In one idea, utilizing wave energy to drive pumps on surface barges or ships would bring cold water from the ocean depths to the surface in hopes of decreasing sea surface temperatures below 80 degrees in the hurricane’s path to sap its strength.

Another idea along those lines was to tow icebergs from the Arctic Ocean into the track of a cyclone.

A Norwegian company called OceanThem, led by retired Norwegian submariner Olav Hollingsaeter recently proposed an intriguing method to reduce hurricanes’ strength, eliminate them or keep them from forming.

Seeing the devastating damages caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 motivated Olav to develop OceanTherm. He and his team came up with the innovative idea of creating artificial upwelling by utilizing bubble curtains.

Upwelling naturally occurs along the California coastline generated by the northwesterly winds.

This spring’s relentless gales have dropped seawater temperatures to the high 40s as cold, clear, and nutrient-rich water rises to the surface along the immediate shoreline.

A bubble curtain is a perforated pipe lowered into the water. This pipe is placed acrossa stretch of ocean, such as a narrow straight, and works by supplying compressed air bubbles to the deep.

When the bubbles rise, they bring the cold deep-sea water to the ocean’s surface.

Currently, OceanThem is conducting a pilot project in Norway. The results are encouraging.

From 50 meters (164 feet) below the sea surface, the company was able to lift the colder water and reduce the sea surface temperature to 0.5 degrees Celsius, or, 0.8 degrees Fahrenheit, above the water temperature at a depth of the bubble curtain.

In the future, the company wants to test bubble curtains at 150 meters (492 feet) and 200 meters (656 feet).

That would put the bubble curtain well below the average thermocline of between 250 and 350 feet in most of the Atlantic Basin. This seawater at these depths is cold enough to kill the hurricane’s heat engine.

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This story was originally published May 10, 2022 at 5:05 AM.