THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 8, 1996 TAG: 9608080427
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 73 lines
With three named storms already in the history books for 1996, the nation's leading hurricane forecaster is now calling for this season to be slightly busier than normal - with three major cyclones yet to come.
Still, this season is not expected to approach last year's, when there were 19 named storms, making it the second-busiest on record.
William Gray, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Colorado State University, issues four forecasts for each hurricane season. The first comes in November and is followed by updates in April, June and August.
The new forecast, his last for this season, reflects a slight upswing in activity compared with what he had predicted in June; 105 percent of normal versus 95 percent of normal. In comparison, last year was 229 percent of normal.
Gray expects that there will be 11 named storms (there have been three) with winds of at least 39 mph. He is calling for seven of those to intensify into hurricanes (there have been two) with sustained winds of 74 mph or higher.
And he expects three hurricanes will become major storms with winds exceeding 111 mph. Such hurricanes are capable of causing extensive damage.
Thus far, only Bertha, which came ashore in southern North Carolina last month and swung north through Southeastern Virginia, reached that intensity - barely. Before landfall, its top winds peaked at 115 mph. But it lost much of its punch on land and caused relatively little damage beyond the area where it came ashore.
In June, Gray had forecast 10 named storms, six hurricanes and two major cyclones.
``This season is somewhat unusual because we've already had three storms,'' Gray said Wednesday. ``We won't see this continued fast pace, but we will see more hurricanes this year.''
If not for the early start, this season might have remained at or below normal, Gray said. ``We're actually going to see slightly below average activity from now on,'' he said.
Based on data from the past century, the average hurricane season yields 9.3 tropical storms and a half-dozen hurricanes. But the historical record also reveals decades-long cycles in which there are many more storms than average and others in which numbers are below normal.
And Gray still believes we are coming out of a relatively quiet period and are about to witness a surge.
The hurricane season, which ends in November, traditionally peaks between mid-August and the end of September. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
STORMS OF 1996
There have been three named storms thus far in 1996.
Arthur - This storm formed east of Florida on June 17, but never
had sustained winds in excess of 40 mph before dissipating on June
21. It skirted the North Carolina coast and passed over Hatteras as
little more than a thunderstorm.
Bertha - It started as a tropical depression on July 4 in the far
eastern Atlantic - an unusually early storm to form in that area -
and grew steadily as it steered west through the Leeward Islands and
just north of Puerto Rico with winds of 115 mph. It caused extensive
damage when it came ashore near Wilmington, N.C., but the storm was
already falling apart and quickly lost its punch as it moved through
eastern North Carolina. It became a tropical storm by the time it
reached Virginia, but did produce a gust to 110 mph at the Third
Island of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.
Cesar - The storm formed on July 25 and barely made it to
hurricane strength with top winds of 80 mph before coming ashore in
Central America on July 28. It later crossed into the Pacific and
regenerated as a hurricane.
KEYWORDS: HURRICANE SEASON by CNB