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IDLING IN NEUTRAL
Outlook for 2005 East Pacific Hurricane Season
The 2005 season, which opened on May 15th, has already gotten off to a quick start with Tropical Storm Adrian forming just off the Coast of Northern Central America. While this is a sign that the Gulf of Tehuantepec region is ready and able to start producing tropical storms it doesn't necessarily indicate that the remainder of the season will be either good or bad.
In general this 2005 season is expected to be below average. Sea-Surface Temperatures are hanging right around the normal "average temps" for this time of year. There are a couple of warm spots along the Southern Mexico and Central America region that are running about 1/2 a degree above the average but overall the SST Anomaly measurements are showing mostly neutral, which means we are not seeing any areas that are above or below what we consider average for the area.
Why is this neutrality important? Simple. All tropical storms are fueled by warm water. The larger across, deeper in depth, and hotter a patch of water becomes, the more there is energy available to sustain a tropical storm. Right now the satellites are showing almost no big changes in SST, which while doesn't hurt us, definitely doesn't help. When you start factoring in things like the position of ITCZ (inter tropical convergence zone) and upper level winds, it is just more cards stacked against a favorable season.
The big brains at the NOAA's Climate Prediction Center are calling the current East Pacific conditions a "slight El Nino", which means overall temps are just barely above average and not anything to get excited about. In fact if water temps hadn't made a significant jump over the last month we might have slipped over to the La Nina side of the scale.
The official EPAC Hurricane outlook is also considered below average with the CPC calling for "11-15 tropical storms (average is 15-16), with 6-8 becoming hurricanes (average is 9), and 2-4 becoming major hurricanes (average is 4-5)." You can read more of the outlook here.
With less storms and less warm water, (well less warm water than a classic El Nino), we can expect our tropical systems to have a smaller effective range and to weaken very quickly as they move away from the Gulf of Tehuantepec. In general we can expect the most intense swells of the first part of the season to show through Southern Baja, Mainland Mexico, and Central America.
Right now things are not looking very good for California. The water along the coast of Baja is still very cool, staying well below the 78-degree SST that is needed to sustain a tropical system. Without that warm water we won't see storms survive very long after they enter our swell window. Fortunately we are still in late-spring which always is a transition period. If, (but more likely when), the weather pattern makes the switch to the average summer conditions we will see that water start to heat up over the next couple of months and open up the tropical storm movement range.
I wish I had a better outlook for the EPAC, but right now things are staying on the mellow side. Lets cross our fingers and hope that, even though we may get less storms than an average season, the ones we do see are intense, moving the right way, and are well positioned.
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Adam Wright
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