NOLA Loses A Legend

The kids would call him “old school.” You and I would use the term “old
fashioned.” For the residents of New Orleans and the northern Gulf Coast, he was
a revered, legendary voice of calm when a hurricane was threatening the region.
   His name was Nash Roberts and he died last week at the age of 92. For more
than 50 years, television viewers in the New Orleans area relied on him for
their daily weather forecasts, updates on severe weather and, most importantly,
the track of tropical systems.
   When a hurricane was moving towards New Orleans residents of the region had
one question: What’s Nash say?
   While viewers respected the other television meteorologists and the experts
at the National Hurricane Center, Nash’s presentation was must-see TV for the
Crescent City because of his remarkable ability to predict the track of tropical
storms and hurricanes.
   It began in 1957 with Hurricane Audrey when Roberts accurately predicted the
mighty storm’s exact landfall. It was a time before weather satellites and
computer models, a time when hurricane forecasting was more art than science.
Yet, Nash’s forecast was 100 percent correct.
   He did it again with Betsy in 1965, Camille in 1969 and, most recently,
Georges in 1998.  His forecast of Georges earned Nash some national notoriety
because of his disagreement with the National Hurricane Center.
   The computer models and the meteorologists at the National Hurricane Center
predicted Georges would make landfall west of New Orleans but Nash saw it
differently, forecasting a landfall east of the city. Using felt pens and his
old fashioned bulletin board, Nash explained to viewers why the computers were
wrong. A few hours later the storm moved onshore east of the city.
   “As long as Roberts and his Magic Markers are exclusive to WWL (a New Orleans
TV station),” wrote the New Orleans Times-Picayune after Georges, “Channel 4
will remain the only place to get an answer to the first hurricane related
question asked by anyone who’s lived in New Orleans for any length of time:
What’s Nash say?”
   Nash’s love affair with meteorology began in 1946, when he started a private
weather service after teaching meteorology at Loyola University. His training
had begun a few years earlier in the Navy.
   In 1951, after hearing that a television meteorologist in Chicago was making
more than $80,000 a year, Nash made his TV debut in New Orleans. A few years
later he became a Gulf Coast legend with his handling of Hurricane Audrey.
   “My method of fooling with these storms is that I lock onto them,” he told
the Times-Picayune in 2006. “I lock onto them and stay with ‘em 24 hours a day,
seven days a week until they are gone, and that is extremely arduous.”
   Nash cut back on his daily weather forecasting in the early 1990’s, only
returning to the airwaves when the region was being threatened by a hurricane.
   And in 2001 he gave it all up for his beloved wife, Lydia who was battling
cancer. He cared for her until her death in 2007.
   “He left the love of broadcasting to care for the love of his life,” Bob
Breck, a meteorologist at a competing New Orleans TV station told the newspaper.
“If there is anything people should remember about Nash was that he had
character. People trusted him.”
   They trusted him, revered him and, now, will miss him.

Predicting Hurricanes Well Down The Road

Sometimes I wonder if there is any justice in the world. That was the thought clanking around my brain after Hurricane Tomas skirted past Haiti. The category one storm dumped heavy rain, producing flooding and triggering mudslides.

Still, considering that a good chunk of the country’s population is living in the streets in makeshift tents and even cardboard boxes because of January’s devastating earthquake, the hurricane’s impact could have been far worse.

The death toll was surprisingly small but the wet weather may exacerbate the cholera outbreak that has already claimed 500 lives and sickened more than 7,000. Officials report that the number of cholera cases spiked following the hurricane.

With a little luck, Tomas may be the last tropical cyclone that Haiti or any other location in hurricane country has to worry about this year After all, with 19 named storms, 12 hurricanes and 5 major hurricanes, the 2010 season has had more than enough activity.

Those numbers are very close to the seasonal forecast issued by Dr. William Gray’s team at Colorado State University. Back in early June, Gray called for a very busy year in the tropics predicting 18 named storms, 10 hurricanes and 5 major hurricanes.

For more than 25 years, Gray and his team have been issuing these seasonal forecasts “to satisfy the curiosity of the general public and bring attention to the hurricane problem.” Writing on his web site, Gray says, “there is a general interest in knowing what the odds are for an active or inactive season.”

Well, how about knowing what to expect for the next 10 years?

A group of scientists in England have created a formula that, they claim, can accurately predict the number of tropical storms and hurricanes that will form in the Atlantic Basin each of the next 10 hurricane seasons.

“This is the first time anyone has reported skill in predicting the number of hurricanes beyond the seasonal time scale, “said Doug Smith, a climate modeler at the Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter, England.

As first reported in Science News magazine, once Smith and his team created their new computer model they tested it by comparing the model’s output against the real hurricane seasons of 1960 to 2007.

Smith says the model was set for May 1 for each of those years and then asked how many storms and hurricanes would form that season. The model results closely matched the actual number of storms that occurred over those decades.

“We’ve found that there is some skill there,” said Smith. Smith said the model data was right on the mark some years, while performing poorly in only a handful of seasons. On average, Smith’s computer models were within 19 percent of the actual data.

The next test for Smith’s team was long term predictions of hurricane activity. Starting November 1 of each year from 1960 to 2007, Smith had the computer predict the number of storms over the next decade.

“The model tracked the observations well,” said Smith. “It was particularly accurate over the first couple of years of each decade.”

While Smith’s computer model will be helpful to emergency planners here in hurricane country, his forecast may answer a larger question: when will the period of higher-than-average tropical activity come to an end?

Since 1995, the Atlantic tic Basin has seen a dramatic jump in tropical cyclone frequency with more storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes each season. Hurricane researchers believe this 15-year up-tick in activity is part of a natural cycle that occurs every 20 to 25 years.

From 1975 to 1995, for example, hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin was relatively quiet although, as Miami experienced in 1992 with Hurricane Andrew, it only takes one hurricane to make it a busy season.

Smith’s new research may give us some idea when the Atlantic will quiet down again.

Tornado-razzi

They are called the “tornado paparazzi” and they are becoming an increasing menace in America’s heartland.

My meteorological buddies in Kansas and Oklahoma tell me that every summer thousands of self-proclaimed storm chasers flock to parts of Tornado Alley in search of twisters. Streaking down the highways and back roads of the Central Plains at more than 90 mph, these amateur weather enthusiasts will do just about anything and go just about anywhere to capture video of a tornado.

“Storm chasing has become a much bigger thing,” Harold Brooks, a meteorologist with the government’s Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma told the Associated Press.  “Data is a available to anyone, so you can essentially have live radar in your vehicle for the price of satellite wireless.”

Equipped with a laptop computer, a video camera and a very used copy of the movie “Twister,” thousands of tornado junkies are clogging the roads of Tornado Alley. The National Association of Storm Chasers and Spotters report that three people have been killed since 1999 while chasing storms.

And, officials fear the numbers will rise.

“There are so many chasers, it’s difficult to get where you need to go, and that can be a problem,” said Dr. Greg Forbes, a severe weather expert with the Weather Channel. “What if a tornado hits something, and there are so many cars around? It makes it difficult for emergency managers to do their jobs.”

According to my friends, the vast majority of the storm chasers seem poorly equipped to handle the powerful storms that rumble across the Central Plains. Even worse, many take unnecessary risks to snap a photograph or capture a few seconds of video that might be sold to a newspaper or television station. Some even bring along their kids for the thrill ride.

Meanwhile, the highly trained meteorologists at local National Weather Service offices track the storms and issue the weather warnings while safely inside government facilities. Once the sky has cleared, the meteorologists are dispatched to survey the damage and determine the severity of the twister.

“Nobody has a job as a storm chaser,” said Brooks. “Maybe five percent of the time we would have people involved in a tornado intercept.”  But out on the highways caravans of amateur storm chasers high tail it down the road trying to beat each other searching for the next super cell thunderstorm.

“They think I’ve got to drive into a tornado,” said veteran chaser Chris Kridler. “Someone’s going to get killed.”

Dude, Where Are The Hurricanes?

This has been a most peculiar hurricane season.

One the one hand, as the experts predicted, it has been very busy.  Every day it seems another wave emerges off the coast of Africa and blows up into a major hurricane.

Yet, nearly all of those monster storms have spent their short time on Earth moving harmlessly through the open waters off the Atlantic. Fish storms rule in 2010.

There have been exceptions, of course. Earl swept through the Outer Banks of North Carolina dropping heavy rain. Karl slammed into Mexico as a major hurricane producing widespread damage. And Igor swamped Bermuda earlier this week with huge waves, coastal flooding and 93 mph winds.   Still, most of the storms, especially the really big, bad hurricanes, haven’t bothered anyone.

No one is complaining about this, of course. But it is quite odd for so many storms to huff and puff their way through the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

One of the primary reasons for this season’s unusual steering currents is the surprising location of the Bermuda High. The Bermuda High is a large high-pressure system ordinarily located over the island of Bermuda. In a normal hurricane season, the Bermuda High would grab a tropical cyclone and steer it toward the Caribbean Sea or the southeast coast of the United States.

This year has been different. The Bermuda High has shifted farther east, meaning all those storms near Africa are now being guided toward the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Another oddity of the 2010 hurricane season is how quickly African waves are developing into hurricanes. Just about every tropical disturbance moving off the African continent has intensified quickly into a tropical storm or hurricane.

The explanation? Very hot water. Sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean are at record high levels, the warmest in more than 100 years of record keeping.

These rapidly developing storms have been particularly troublesome for the residents of the Cape Verde Islands. A horseshoe shaped cluster of 10 islands less than 400 miles from the African Coast; the Islands have been battered by several tropical storms and hurricanes this season. In fact, the Cape Verde Islands has been impacted by more tropical cyclones this season than the United States.

Yes, it has been a most peculiar hurricane season.

And not just in the Atlantic Ocean. Hurricanes are M-I-A in the huge Pacific Ocean.

In the eastern Pacific, a near-record quiet season is currently underway. So far there have been 6 named storms, 3 hurricanes and two major hurricanes. Ordinarily, we should have 12 named storms, 6 hurricanes and two major hurricanes.

It remains remarkably quiet in the Western Pacific Ocean as well. Usually by this time of the year the Western Pacific should have produced 17 named storms, 11 typhoons and two super typhoons (winds over 150 mph).  So far, 11 named storms have formed 5 typhoons and no super typhoons.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining about this lack of hurricane activity or the unusual tracks the Atlantic storms have taken so far this season. Like you, I’m as happy as can be with this stress-free summer of storms.

Still, the 2010 hurricane season is far from over.  I’m just wondering what new oddities Mother Nature will cook up over the next two months.

-Mike

Too Cold for South Florida

It is safe to say that that our weather pattern over the past week has not exactly been up to the usual standards. In fact, it has been downright crazy with wind chill advisories, freeze warnings and the longest stretch of crummy weather in over a decade.

   After a very brief warm-up on Thursday and Friday, the chill is back this morning with what could be history-making cold temperatures for the region. For the second time in 2010, a surge of arctic air has invaded South Florida dropping temperatures into the upper 20’s and producing wind chill factors that would make an Eskimo cold.

   Obviously, this is quite distressing. Especially for me since I despise chilly weather. I spent enough of my life shaking and shivering in places like Green Bay, Wisconsin and Topeka, Kansas. I don’t want to experience any more winter weather

   In fact, one of the reasons I love living here is our tropical climate. My motto: the warmer the weather, the happier I am. I love the heat. I’m a big fan of humidity. Give me a sunny, hot, and muggy day and good old Mike has a big smile on his face.

   That smile vanished about six days ago when I looked at the weather charts. The polar express was on its way and, unlike most of our cold spells, this one was going to be very cold and, perhaps more disturbing, stick around for a while.

   Ordinarily, our nippy weather doesn’t last long. Within 24 to 36 hours, the chilly air is moving away as a warm, tropical breeze returns to the area.

   But this frosty pattern was different. Like that visiting relative from up north, it refused to leave as each day got colder and colder. The National Weather Service in Miami says it was the longest period of cold weather since 2001.

   The gusty northwest winds and chilly morning temperatures kept me off the golf course and even curtailed my daily run. I did try running one morning but I had on so many layers of clothing it looked like Michelin Man was lost in our cull de sac.

   It was even tougher at work because my newscast producers thought it would be “great TV” if I did the nightly weather reports from outside in the cold. So, there I was, every night last week all bundled up telling viewers at home that it was cold outside.

   Folks watching probably knew that anyway since the weatherman was turning blue on live TV. Once night I compared our temperature with the temperature in New York. They were virtually the same! How crazy is that? (Last Thursday it was warmer in Juneau, Alaska than Palm Beach, Florida!)

   The reason for our prolonged period of misery was something meteorologists call a “blocking” weather pattern. In essence, a large low-pressure system over New England refused to budge, “blocking” any other weather system from moving across the country. 

   The stuck-in-the-mud low-pressure system helped steer the frigid weather all the way into South Florida. By Friday, the low finally got shoved into the Atlantic Ocean giving Palm Beach a two-day break from the chill.  But yesterday, another cold front swept across the state bringing a return of the frigid weather.  

   Thankfully, this cold spell won’t last long. Warmer temperatures will return by the end of the week meaning I will be wearing a big smile very soon.

Making Hurricanes Go Away

  Four months ago this week, residents in South Florida were anxiously watching the tropics as Hurricane Ike formed in the Atlantic Ocean. For two agonizing days, the Palm Beaches was ground zero in the National Hurricane Center’s “cone of uncertainty.”

    Thankfully for us, a large high-pressure system steered Ike south of Florida. Unfortunately, the storm slammed into Cuba and eventually made landfall near Galveston, Texas, becoming the costliest hurricane in Texas history.

   During those two days in early September when it looked like Ike was headed our way, I fielded more than a few phone calls from folks wondering why science can’t do something about these huge storms.

  “If we can put a man on the moon,” some folks would say to me. “Why can’t we weaken a hurricane?”

   We did try once. Back in the 1960’s and ‘70’s, the U.S. Government created Project Stormfury, an attempt to weaken tropical storms and hurricanes by flying aircraft into the storms and seeding them with silver iodide.

   While the theory (silver iodide would cause supercooled water in the storm to freeze, disrupting the inner structure of the hurricane) had merit, the scientific team could never determine if the structural changes in the storm were produced by the seeding or just natural fluctations of the the hurricane.

   A big part of the problem is the sheer size and power of a hurricane. A typical storm will cover hundreds of miles and reach thousands of feet into the atmosphere. The energy released by a hurricane is mind-boggling, as much as 500,000 atom bombs.

  Still, science hasn’t given up. Researchers from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Isreal think they’ve come up with a new way to weaken a hurricane. They want to blow smoke into a storm.

   The group believes that injecting tiny smoke particles into the bottom part of a hurricane will cause water vapor to condense at a lower altitude than normally occurs in a hurricane.

   Why is this important? If the water vapor condenses at that lower altitude it will lead to the formation of water droplets that are too small to become raindrops. It is the formation of these raindrops that leads to the release of latent heat energy that gives the storm its destructive power.  

   Bottom line: fewer raindrops mean a weaker hurricane.

   Computer models of the theory have been promising. Daniel Rosenfield, the scientist who came up with the idea, said wind speeds were cut by 25 percent in the simulations. That is a significant drop in the power of a storm that could conceivably turn a major hurricane into a much weaker storm.

   Still, while it may be possible to weaken a hurricane in a computer model, doing it in real life is something else entirely. Just to get enough smoke particles into a storm, Rosenfield estimates, would require 5 to 10 cargo airplanes filled with the stuff.   At present, no one has come up with the money for Rosenfield to field-test his theory.

   Of course, the bigger question is should we even fool around with Mother Nature? Hurricanes are a natural part of the planet, helping to transport heat from the equator to other parts of our world.

   I guess it all depends on WHEN you ask the question. It sure seemed like a good idea four months ago.

Learning the Hard Way

   It is called a mandatory evacuation. It is issued by local government agencies telling residents that they need to get out of harm’s way.

   Here in South Florida, mandatory evacuations are common when a hurricane is expected to make landfall. Twenty-four to thirty-six hours before the storm is anticipated to strike, local governments, working with forecasters at the National Hurricane Center, will issue the evacuation orders.

   Ordinarily, those evacuation guidelines will cover long stretches of communities close to the coastline or in areas that typically flood. Folks who live on Palm Beach, Singer Island or barrier beaches are told to leave their homes and move inland.

   Still, not everyone leaves. Even though it is a “mandatory” evacuation, authorities do not have the manpower to enforce the evacuation. So, in every storm, there are always a few people who stay behind.

   Just like Connie Travis and her son, Mathew Nez, of Crystal Beach, Texas.

   As told by Houston television station KHOU, Connie and Matthew were not going to leave their Crystal Beach home just because Hurricane Ike was headed their way. So, they defied the “mandatory” evacuation and rode out the hurricane, recording the event with Matthew’s home video camera.

   “There is no way the water is going to rise to that roof,” Connie says on the videotape pointing to the bottom of her house some 15 feet above the beach. “It is all news media, weather propaganda. And, I want to stay.”

    Connie’s comments were recorded one day before Ike slammed into the Texas Coastline. Packing winds of 110 mph and generating a storm surge of 20 feet, Ike made landfall along Crystal Beach in the early morning hours of September 13. It is the costliest hurricane in Texas history with damages topping $25 billion.

    “Man, I wish you could see this,” Matthew says on the videotape. “The wind is horrendous.”

   During the height of the storm, the storm surge rose 15 feet to the bottom of Connie’s beach house, the generator quit working, the camera stopped rolling and Crystal Beach went black. But, Connie and Matthew survived. “The night was literally hell for me,” said Connie.

   “Staying here was not a very smart idea,” Matthew told KHOU television. “We never had any idea it would have gotten than bad or we wouldn’t have stayed.’

    A Coast Guard helicopter rescued Connie and Matthew just hours after the wind died down. As they were being lifted from their home and into the waiting chopper, the mother and son came face to face with their decision to stay.

   “So many people lost everything, everything,” said Connie. “What’s the point? I would never ride out another hurricane again.”

   Still, Connie and Matthew were lucky; their home survived the hurricane. Most of their neighbors lost everything. It will be months before Connie, Matthew and the residents of Crystal Beach, Texas recover from Hurricane Ike. And perhaps years before the emotional scars go away, like the last words a 911 operator told Connie hours before the storm hit.

   “She said ‘write your Social Security number of your arm so that if you get swept away we can identify you’,” Connie said. “That’s when I freaked out.”

   Safe to say that Connie and Matthew now understand the meaning of “mandatory evacuation.”

When Bad Things Happen to Good Forecasts

Flooding and mudslides in Southern California, blowing snow with wind chills approaching 50 below in North Dakota and more than one million people without power in New England thanks to an ice storm.

  Yea, it was a good week to be in South Florida.

  I’m guessing that you liked our weather over the past six days, easily some of the nicest we’ve seen in months. Each day featured mostly sunny skies with afternoon high temperatures in the upper 70’s and mild overnight lows in the 60’s. It was just about perfect.

   Except for Tuesday.

   I knew something was amiss with our weather as soon as I woke up Tuesday morning. The night before I had predicted sunshine and warm temperatures (close to 80), yet as I peered out my bedroom window I was greeted with thick clouds and light rain.   

    (Insider information on meteorologists: the first thing every weather forecaster does when he/she wakes up each morning is look out the window. We are expecting a certain type of weather based on our most recent forecast and, if it is not what we anticipated, it is a lousy way to start the day.)

   Back to last Tuesday: gray, wet and cool. This is not good, I said to myself as I quickly turned on the Weather Channel and scrambled for my laptop. What in the world is going on?

   My mood darkened as I scanned satellite loops and radar sweeps of our area, each showing thick clouds and persistent showers across nearly all of South Florida. Surely, this damp weather can’t last? We should see sunshine and warmer temperatures by the afternoon. Right?

   Wrong. The afternoon was just as gloomy as Tuesday morning leading to an inescapable conclusion: my prediction was dead wrong. A busted forecast, as we say in this business. 

   Everywhere I went Tuesday I was greeted with the same question: Wasn’t it supposed to by sunny and warm today? Yes, I would reply somewhat sheepishly, that’s what I expected.

   Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this sordid story is that Tuesday’s forecast seemed like a slam-dunk. Everything I looked at Monday afternoon told me that Tuesday was going to be one of the best days of weather we’ve seen in months, the kind of late fall weather that made South Florida famous.

   It reminded me of another seemingly “easy” forecast back in September. At the time, it seemed a certainty that it was going to rain cats and dogs across the region. The setup was classic: an abundance of tropical moisture in the Gulf of Mexico and an approaching trough of low pressure. The result: periods of heavy rain.  It didn’t rain. In fact, it was sunny across most of the state.

    Still, I am happy to report, Tuesday’s boo boo notwithstanding, that most of the time I get the weather correct. In fact, forecasting overall continues to improve especially for the big weather events like a tornado outbreak, a major winter storm or an approaching hurricane.

    So, I’ll keep calling ‘em like I seem them. And each morning I’ll look out that bedroom window expecting the best. And if I’m wrong again? It’s back to the Weather Channel and my laptop.

  

A Dry and Chilly Winter?

  It’s a dry heat. That’s how some describe the weather in Phoenix, Arizona during the summer months when the temperature routinely tops 100 degrees while the humidity is nearly non-existent.

     While Phoenix and the rest of the American Southwest are famous for its triple-digit-trouble, some might be surprised to learn that the region does have a rainy season. From June 15 through the end of September, large, powerful thunderstorms are common across the area.

  Still, in recent years, meteorologists have been at odds over what to call the outbreak of storms. Some of the names that have been used include Arizona monsoon, Southwest monsoon, Mexican monsoon and summer thunderstorm season.

   “The one thing that has been consistent is the lack of uniformity on the monsoon hazards,” said Tom Haffer with the National Weather Service in Phoenix.

   There is no such problem here in South Florida. Our rainy season is just that, the rainy season, and in 2008 it was very wet.

   The National Weather Service reports that this year’s rainy season began on May 22 and ended on October 14. Rainfall during that five-month period was heavy, averaging about five inches above normal and officially ending South Florida’s recent drought.

   “Tropical Storm Fay put the bullet in the drought,” Geoff Shaughnessy, a meteorologist with the South Florida Water Management District told the Palm Beach Post.

   The slow-moving tropical storm dumped a foot of rain on Lake Okeechobee and nearly two feet in the Melbourne area. Because of Fay’s prodigious rainfall, the level of Lake Okeechobee rose from 9.3 feet in June to more than 15 feet in early September.

    In fact, Fay was determined to drop rainfall on every square inch of the state. The storm made its initial landfall in the Keys, a few hours later came a second landfall near Ft. Myers followed by a slow trek across Lake Okeechobee and off the coast near Melbourne.

    Fay spent the next three days lingering off the coast of the Kennedy Space Center before making a third landfall in Florida in Volusia County. The storm moved on a west-northwest track across the state, back into the Gulf of Mexico with another landfall in the panhandle.

  Fay is long-gone and so are our regular afternoon thunderstorms. The dry season is here and, if the forecasts are correct, it looks to be a very dry and potentially chilly winter and spring.

    “The National Weather Service’s long-range outlook for the upcoming winter and spring is for an increased likelihood of below normal rainfall and near normal temperatures,” said Robert Molleda, a meteorologist with the Miami National Weather Service office.

   Molleda bases his forecast on sea surface trends in the equatorial Pacific Ocean that tend to influence weather patterns around the world. The warm water phase of the phenomenon is called El Nino, while the cold water phase is referred to as la Nina.

    The current phase is neutral, which means that the equatorial sea surface temperatures are near normal. The forecast for the upcoming winter and spring seasons is for a continuation or near normal conditions to possibly a cool, or La Nina

 in early 2009.

   Based on past neutral or weak La Nina events, Molleda says, “that the likelihood of a drier winter and spring is higher” here in South Florida. Temperature trends, on the other hand, are not as well defined. Still, Molleda predicts “there is a higher than normal likelihood of a freeze over South Florida.”

   “Previous years with similar trends (in the equatorial Pacific) have shown fairly significant variability in temperatures during the winter months,” said Molleda. “The winter seasons of 1960-61 and 1980-81 produced significant cold spells across parts of South Florida.”  Another comparable winter season, 1996-97, tended to be very warm with brief, but intense cold spells.

   As always, one should take these long-range forecasts with a grain or two with salt. After all, we weather folks often have a difficult time predicting what next Tuesday’s weather will be like, let alone next month’s.

   By the way, those squabbling meteorologists in Arizona finally agreed on a name for their summer storm season. It’s called: the North American Monsoon.

   

A Chilly and Dry Winter?

  It’s a dry heat. That’s how some describe the weather in Phoenix, Arizona during the summer months when the temperature routinely tops 100 degrees while the humidity is nearly non-existent.

     While Phoenix and the rest of the American Southwest are famous for its triple-digit-trouble, some might be surprised to learn that the region does have a rainy season. From June 15 through the end of September, large, powerful thunderstorms are common across the area.

  Still, in recent years, meteorologists have been at odds over what to call the outbreak of storms. Some of the names that have been used include Arizona monsoon, Southwest monsoon, Mexican monsoon and summer thunderstorm season.

   “The one thing that has been consistent is the lack of uniformity on the monsoon hazards,” said Tom Haffer with the National Weather Service in Phoenix.

   There is no such problem here in South Florida. Our rainy season is just that, the rainy season, and in 2008 it was very wet.

   The National Weather Service reports that this year’s rainy season began on May 22 and ended on October 14. Rainfall during that five-month period was heavy, averaging about five inches above normal and officially ending South Florida’s recent drought.

   “Tropical Storm Fay put the bullet in the drought,” Geoff Shaughnessy, a meteorologist with the South Florida Water Management District told the Palm Beach Post.

   The slow-moving tropical storm dumped a foot of rain on Lake Okeechobee and nearly two feet in the Melbourne area. Because of Fay’s prodigious rainfall, the level of Lake Okeechobee rose from 9.3 feet in June to more than 15 feet in early September.

    In fact, Fay was determined to drop rainfall on every square inch of the state. The storm made its initial landfall in the Keys, a few hours later came a second landfall near Ft. Myers followed by a slow trek across Lake Okeechobee and off the coast near Melbourne.

    Fay spent the next three days lingering off the coast of the Kennedy Space Center before making a third landfall in Florida in Volusia County. The storm moved on a west-northwest track across the state, back into the Gulf of Mexico with another landfall in the panhandle.

  Fay is long-gone and so are our regular afternoon thunderstorms. The dry season is here and, if the forecasts are correct, it looks to be a very dry and potentially chilly winter and spring.

    “The National Weather Service’s long-range outlook for the upcoming winter and spring is for an increased likelihood of below normal rainfall and near normal temperatures,” said Robert Molleda, a meteorologist with the Miami National Weather Service office.

   Molleda bases his forecast on sea surface trends in the equatorial Pacific Ocean that tend to influence weather patterns around the world. The warm water phase of the phenomenon is called El Nino, while the cold water phase is referred to as la Nina.

    The current phase is neutral, which means that the equatorial sea surface temperatures are near normal. The forecast for the upcoming winter and spring seasons is for a continuation or near normal conditions to possibly a cool, or La Nina

The current phase is neutral, which means that the equatorial sea surface temperatures are near normal. The forecast for the upcoming winter and spring seasons is for a continuation or near normal conditions to possibly a cool, or La Nina event, is early 2009.

   Based on past neutral or weak La Nina events, Molleda says, “that the likelihood of a drier winter and spring is higher” here in South Florida. Temperature trends, on the other hand, are not as well defined. Still, Molleda predicts “there is a higher than normal likelihood of a freeze over South Florida.”

   “Previous years with similar trends (in the equatorial Pacific) have shown fairly significant variability in temperatures during the winter months,” said Molleda. “The winter seasons of 1960-61 and 1980-81 produced significant cold spells across parts of South Florida.”  Another comparable winter season, 1996-97, tended to be very warm with brief, but intense cold spells.

   As always, one should take these long-range forecasts with a grain or two with salt. After all, we weather folks often have a difficult time predicting what next Tuesday’s weather will be like, let alone next month’s.

   By the way, those squabbling meteorologists in Arizona finally agreed on a name for their summer storm season. It’s called: the North American Monsoon.