cieldumort
Moderator
Reged: Mon
Posts: 2136
Loc: Austin, Tx
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A number of us toss our best guesses in the ring each year as to what we think season totals will end up being. As a group, we tend to do surprisingly well!
Then of course we all also follow the professional seasonal forecasts from Colorado State, The Weather Channel, UKMET, etc.
Overall, most agencies are already predicting a very active season.
At the time of our contest, with voting ending on the day before the official start of the season, I personally went with what was in my mind a possibly conservative range of 16-22 Depressions, 14-19 Storms, 6-9 Hurricanes and 3-5 Majors. It was too early in the year for me to want to jump a gun out of some historical constraints I put on my own best guesses every year. Nonetheless, those are already hyperactive season numbers.
But as June progressed and I have only seen more and more confirmation of the potential for a doozy of a season, it got me thinking we all might want to discuss the season, our guesses, and even post some thoughts on where we think things are going *now*
If it's good enough for the pros to update several times a season, why not talk about where we think things are headed.
So here it is, an opportunity to discuss the 2022 season as it and our own forecasts progress.
Season forecasts from some of the top agencies at the time of this post are as follows:

Cr. Wikipedia
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cieldumort
Moderator
Reged: Mon
Posts: 2136
Loc: Austin, Tx
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Compared to where I was May 31st to where I am today, June 24, I'm leaning in to calling for a season that has echos of some of our extremely active seasons, with both 2020 and 2005 as somewhat analogous. A couple of the reasons for this include unusually favorable conditions even early on in the MDR (Main Development Region) of the Tropical Atlantic, as well as the potential for very favorable conditions for both development and Rapid Intensification in portions of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. In addition, there is reason to believe that conditions for development in the sub-tropical Atlantic could be above to even much above average.
If I was pressed to give an update to my pre-season, constrained guess of 16-22 Depressions, 14-19 Storms, 6-9 Hurricanes and 3-5 Majors, I would now be at 20-24 Depressions, 18-22 Storms, 9-13 Hurricanes and 4-7 Majors, with a risk of even this being on the low end. The reason for the dramatic increase has to do with all the confirmation I have seen that the constraints I apply early on probably should not be applied this year, and without those constraints, the numbers come in to much more alignment with our most hyperactive years.
What say you?
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IsoFlame
Weather Guru
Reged: Wed
Posts: 198
Loc: One block off the Atlantic Oce...
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Here say me...
Though July climo historically last relatively quite month before August ramps up, I'm not sure if Saharan dust and lack of moisture this month in the east/central Atlantic is the culprit for how quite the last 3-4 weeks (and potintially the next 2 weeks) have been. It appears to me that a dominant and stubborn Azores high is decapitating convection emerging off the African coast and depressing SST's in the seeding ground for tropical waves in the east-central Atlantic. I keep looking for this pattern to change in the medium range forecast models, but see no indication into the second week in August.
That said, the central and western Caribbean, as well as the entire GOMEX, should be open for business should a wave survive a week's trek in the MDR. I'm still backing the conservative call made in May, with a gut feeling the heart of the season (3rd week of August into early October) could be crazy busy... .
-------------------- CoCoRaHS Weather Observer (FL-VL-42) & Surf Forecaster: https://www.surf-station.com/north-florida-surf-forecast-3/
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