
DATE: Saturday, August 30, 1997             TAG: 9708300389

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   86 lines

WHERE ARE ALL THE HURRICANES? UNUSUAL LACK OF STORMS IS TIED TO WARM PACIFIC WATERS ALL QUIET IN THE ATLANTIC - FOR NOW

No news is good news.

If we make it through the next few days without any tropical systems forming in the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of Mexico, this will be the quietest August, with regard to hurricanes, since 1961.

Normally, this is the second busiest month of the hurricane season. But despite a burst of stormy activity in recent days, the month has yielded nary a single tropical depression, tropical storm or hurricane.

``It's very unusual, obviously, for it to be this quiet in August,'' said John Hope, a senior meteorologist at The Weather Channel in Atlanta. Historical records dating back to the 1800s show only 14 Augusts on record with no tropical events.

It is perhaps the most graphic testament yet to the theory that hurricane activity in the Atlantic is suppressed when there is a strong warming of Pacific waters.

The condition is called ``El Nino'': The warm water affects atmospheric conditions, contributing to more intense westerly winds. They, in turn, work against the formation of Atlantic hurricanes by literally blowing the tops off gathering storms.

In this century, a quarter of all tropical storms and hurricanes formed in the six-month Atlantic hurricane season have come in August. The busiest month is usually September, with about a third of the activity.

Following with progressively fewer storms are October, July, June and November.

Based on the records, the peak of the hurricane season is in a four- to six-week period centering on Sept. 10.

Quiet Augusts are not only rare generally, but especially so in the past 60 years.

Of the 14 uneventful Augusts on record, the two most recent occurred in 1941 and 1961. ``All the others were prior to that by quite a bit,'' Hope said.

There was a string of quiet Augusts in the '20s: 1920, 1921, 1925 and 1929.

For the past three years, August has been the busiest month of the hurricane season, with a total of 14 named storms - twice as many as the three-year total for September - and nine hurricanes, compared to five in September.

While it has been quiet this August, it has not been silent this season. July was unusually busy, with four named storms, Hope said.

Two of those storms became hurricanes.

In July, Hurricane Danny passed over Hampton Roads after forming in the Gulf of Mexico and dropping huge amounts of rain over coastal Alabama and Florida. As it moved inland, its remnants reintensified, spawning tornadoes and stormy weather.

The other three storms - Hurricane Bill and tropical storms Ana and Claudette - formed off the North Carolina and Virginia coasts, but stayed out to sea.

The current silence in the Atlantic threatens to throw a wrench into the prognostications of the nation's leading hurricane forecasters.

It's been an ``extremely unusual and difficult year to forecast,'' said William M. Gray, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Colorado State University.

Last month, noting the effects of El Nino, Gray lowered slightly his outlook for this year, predicting 11 named storms, with winds of 39 to 74 mph, and six hurricanes, with winds of 74 mph or higher. Two of those, he said, would become intense storms with winds above 111 mph.

The update trimmed two hurricanes - one of them an intense storm - from Gray's June outlook.

He has issued no more forecast revisions. But in order for his forecast to pan out, ``September would have to be much busier than normal,'' Hope said. ``I'd say his forecast is in jeopardy. The one thing he's got going for him is that we've already had four named storms, which is above normal going into August.''

Normally, September produces three named storms, and October produces two.

For Gray's forecast to work out, there would have to be seven more named storms before the end of the season, with five of those becoming hurricanes.

Hope said, ``That's going to be difficult.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by NOAA/National Climatic Data

Hurricane Fran, above, caused 34 deaths and $3.2 billion in damage

in 1996. It developed near the Cape Verde Islands and later battered

the East Coast with 115 mph winds.

Graphics

El Nino in Action

Stormy Times

For complete information see microfilm