NEW YORK - Despite a very active start to the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season that has set energy markets on edge, forecasters on Thursday said there was no reason yet to expect this year will bring a record number of named storms.
Seven named storms, including two hurricanes, have so far emerged from the Atlantic -- the most active beginning to a season. Hurricanes and powerful storms pose a threat to offshore oil and gas operations concentrated in the Gulf of Mexico, home to a quarter of US domestic production.
"Hopefully we've seen our August barrage in July and we won't be quite as active in August and September," said hurricane specialist Stacy Stewart of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. "But we could just as easily get five or six in August and another five or so in September and approach 20 storms by the end of the season," Stewart said.
A tally of 20 named storms this year would be a record, beating out the previous record of 19 named storms in 1995. The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30.
Storms and hurricanes so far this season have caused billions of dollars in damage on land and have halted around 10 million barrels of US and Mexican oil production -- a factor which has contributed to oil's surge to $60 a barrel.
Hurricane forecaster William Gray and the Colorado State University hurricane research project predicted 2005 will be a well above-average hurricane season. In his late May 2005 Atlantic basin update, Gray said the season is expected to have about 15 named storms, eight of them hurricanes.
The forecast added that there is an above-average probability of major hurricane landfall in the US
An average hurricane season brings around 10 named storms.
TROPICAL WAVES GATHER
On Thursday, four tropical waves, which can sometimes strengthen into tropical storms, churned in the Atlantic and Caribbean, though the NHC's Stewart said the number was not out of the ordinary.
"This is very common. Often times on our map we can have as many as six or seven (tropical waves) in the Atlantic Basin, fortunately they don't all develop," he said.
Two of the tropical waves were churning over the eastern Atlantic with another in the central Atlantic and a fourth one meandering in the western Caribbean Sea.
It was still too early to determine if those waves would develop into tropical storms and threaten US offshore oil and gas platforms in the Gulf.
Storm patterns vary from year to year, Stewart said, but added that a fairly strong Bermuda high pressure ridge was positioned a little farther south and a little more west than normal, similar to patterns seen last year.
"If that pattern persists I'm not going to say that the East Coast wouldn't be threatened, but the north East Coast tends to be less threatened and it focuses more on the Southeast US and the Gulf of Mexico," Stewart said.
The 2004 Atlantic hurricane season, among the most devastating on record, was especially catastrophic for the Caribbean and Florida.
Hurricane Ivan, one of the most powerful of the nine 2004 hurricanes, cut 45 million barrels of oil production over six months and destroyed undersea pipelines.
Story by Eileen Moustakis
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
