THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 15, 1994 TAG: 9410150196
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
In six weeks the 1994 hurricane season will officially end, and forecasters are striking out trying to hit on why there was but one piddling pop-up of an Atlantic storm that turned out to be hardly worth the name of ``Chris.''
For frustrated scientist-fan William Mason Gray, the baseball analogy is appropriate.
``Historically, the last time we had similar global atmospheric conditions was in 1904 and the World Series was canceled in that year, too - what am I supposed to make of that?'' asked the Colorado State University professor who is the dean of long-range hurricane forecasters.
Gray is known for developing an increasingly accurate formula for predicting hurricanes. One of the key factors in his equation is the actions of El Nino, the climate-controlling dome of warm tropical water that periodically washes onto the western shore of South America.
Meteorologists all over the world agree that this year one of the longest-running El Ninos in recorded history is still lapping the coasts of Ecuador and Peru, bringing major changes to the world's weather.
``We don't have many hurricanes when we have an El Nino,'' said Gray. ``It is one of the five primary factors we use in our forecast.'' Other factors are the direction of stratospheric winds around the globe, rainfall in West Africa, where hurricanes seem to be spawned, and barometer pressure patterns over the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
El Ninos usually appear around Christmas - hence the Spanish name for the Christ Child - but the warm tropical water from the central Pacific Ocean rarely remains along the South American coast for more than two years.
``But this El Nino is still in place for a third straight year and it looks like it will remain this winter and into a fourth year,'' said Vernon Kousky, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service Climate Analysis Center in Camp Springs, Md.
``The presence along the coast of Peru and Ecuador of all that warm water also warms the atmosphere, and that in turn affects the barometric pressures along the Pacific coasts and in the Caribbean,'' said Kousky.
``Finally, El Nino seems to redirect the jet streams over the northern hemisphere, bringing storms to the California coast.''
Kousky's colleagues at the Climate Analysis Center and at the National Severe Storms Center in Norman, Okla., now suspect that the ``coupling'' between El Nino and the weather patterns in North America had a lot to do with the extensive Midwest rainfall and flooding of two years ago.
The Climate Analysis scientists also believe El Nino has indirectly caused a four-year drought in Australia, altered the rain pattern of the Indian monsoons and produced violent weather in otherwise placid regions.
And by displacing normally cold water along the South American coast, El Nino drives away fish that sustain a major industry, and sends floods to Peru.
The persistence of El Nino forced Gray to twice revise this year's hurricane prediction downward.
``The El Nino is surprising all of the experts in that it remained warmer than normal for three consecutive years,'' said Gray in August, when he decided that El Nino would reduce the number of likely hurricanes this year from five to four, with only one of them being severe.
If Hurricane Chris remains the only major Atlantic storm of the season, it will be listed as hardly more than a bunt on Gray's scorecard.
``Chris popped up near Bermuda on Aug. 16 and fizzled out far offshore in the Atlantic on Aug. 23,'' said Meteorologist Frank Lepore at the National Hurricane Center in Coral Gables, Fla. ``And, yes, everybody's trying to figure out why it's been such a quiet year.''
Lepore said that the peak time for Atlantic hurricanes during the past 100 years has been between Aug. 10 and Sept. 10.
``It's a bell curve that drops sharply after that to the official end of the season on Nov. 30,'' he said.
``And right now everything remains as quiet as can be over the Atlantic,'' Lepore added.
Gray, meanwhile, is warming up for the 1995 hurricane season but he isn't sure that his storm curve is breaking properly.
Normally, the Colorado State scientist issues a preliminary forecast in November to cover the following year. He revises that forecast in June and August.
Unlike Kousky, Gray thinks the present long-lasting El Nino will begin to fade away this winter.
``I believe we're seeing cooler water along the South American coast,'' he said. ``I don't believe this El Nino will last much longer.''
Gray also believes the direction of the high-altitude winds that circle the Earth is beginning to change from an easterly to a westerly direction.
Gray calls the winds QBOs for quasi-biennial-oscillations and when the QBOs are from the east, the number of hurricanes is reduced. Gray believes that easterly QBOs blow the tops off hurricanes before they can develop a tight ring of powerful winds around the eye.
``But now we think we're seeing signs of westerly winds again and that will mean better conditions for hurricanes next year.''
But, like baseball, forecasting still remains an inexact science.
Gray manages to keep a perfectly straight face when he talks about conditions in 1904, when there were no hurricanes - and there was no World Series. Colleagues at Colorado State won't be surprised if the waggish Gray comes up with a Baseball Theory for long-lasting El Ninos.
``Wait a minute,'' said Gray last week. ``You know in the baseball movie `Field of Dreams' - the voice that says, `If you build it they will come?'
``How about: `Build an El Nino and they won't come?' ''
(Pause)
``Hurricanes, I mean.''
KEYWORDS: FORECAST WEATHER HURRICANE by CNB