By Paul Homewood
The Atlantic hurricane season, which officially ended on 30th November, was quieter than normal, with five hurricanes, compared to a long-term average of 7.2.
By far the most complete and robust data we have for hurricanes is for those which have hit the US coast. The US Hurricane Research Division, which is part of the Federal agency NOAA, have data going back as far as 1851. According to them, hurricane data is pretty reliable since the 1880s, when the coastline became settled.
No Atlantic hurricanes at all have hit the US this year. The graphs below offer the strongest evidence of all that there are no long-term trends, either in the frequency of hurricanes or their intensity. (Major hurricanes are Cat 3 and stronger – these show no increase either.)
This is in marked contrast to the myth regularly peddled by the BBC and others, that hurricanes are getting more powerful. It is worth pointing out in this respect that the strongest hurricane on record to hit the US was the Labor Day hurricane in 1935. The second most powerful was Camille in 1969 and the third was Andrew in 1992.
https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/All_U.S._Hurricanes.html
As far as the Atlantic basin is concerned, we have only had reliable data since comprehensive satellite coverage began in the 1980s. It was even later than this that hurricane hunter aircraft became robust enough to fly into the middle of the strongest hurricanes for hours on end.
The hurricane maps for this year and 1925 show just why you cannot compare today’s data with the past. Whereas most of this year’s hurricanes meandered around in Mid-Atlantic, the only ones recorded a hundred years ago were all close to land.
There were, of course, plenty of hurricanes in 1925 which never got close to shore. We simply did not have the ability to spot them.
Even when hurricane hunter aircraft started to be deployed in the 19 40s, they were unable to fly into the most powerful hurricanes, for obvious reasons. One study in 2012 by leading hurricane scientists reviewed the ten most recent Cat 5 Atlantic hurricanes, the strongest hurricanes of all. They concluded that using technology available in the 1940s, only two would have been classified as Cat 5. (It is worth noting that two of this year’s Cat 5s peaked in the middle of the Atlantic, Erin and Humberto; both only hit those wind speeds for a few hours. Neither would have been classed as Cat 5s more than a few years ago. Nor would they have even been spotted before the 1950s).
When we look at the reliable data we do have, it is clear that there are no increasing trends in frequency or intensity. This supports the findings from US hurricanes
Even when hurricane hunter aircraft started to be deployed in the 1940s, they were unable to fly into the most powerful hurricanes, for obvious reasons. One study in 2012 by leading hurricane scientists reviewed the ten most recent Cat 5 Atlantic hurricanes, the strongest hurricanes of all. They concluded that using technology available in the 1940s, only two would have been classified as Cat 5. (It is worth noting that two of this year’s Cat 5s peaked in the middle of the Atlantic, Erin and Humberto; both only hit those wind speeds for a few hours. Neither would have been classed as Cat 5s more than a few years ago. Nor would they have even been spotted before the 1950s).
When we look at the reliable data we do have, it is clear that there are no increasing trends in frequency or intensity. This supports the findings from US hurricanes:
So, what do the actual hurricane experts in the US say?
In their annual review of Atlantic hurricanes, published earlier this year, NOAA, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, stated:
There is no strong evidence of century-scale increasing trends in U.S. landfalling hurricanes or major hurricanes. Similarly for Atlantic basin-wide hurricane frequency (after adjusting for changing observing capabilities over time), there is not strong evidence for an increase since the late 1800s in hurricanes, major hurricanes, or the proportion of hurricanes that reach major hurricane intensity.
We conclude that the historical Atlantic hurricane data at this stage do not provide compelling evidence for a substantial greenhouse warming-induced century-scale increase in: frequency of tropical storms, hurricanes, or major hurricanes, or in the proportion of hurricanes that become major hurricanes.
https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/
NOAA could not be clearer.
So why, as recently as two months ago, did the BBC weathergirl, Sarah Keith-Lucas tell BBC viewers that “the frequency of very intense hurricanes such as Melissa is increasing”?
