Hurricane Forecasters Reveal Limits of Climate Science

In August, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecast an 85% probability there would be an "above normal" hurricane season.¹

This was the second year running the government hurricane forecast was wrong. This 0-2 record may tell us something about other similarly "certain" forecasts, such as those issued by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

If forecasters can't get hurricane projections right in the middle of a hurricane season, updating data constantly, how can we trust their forecasts for a hundred years from now?

NOAA's forecast called for seven to nine hurricanes, three to five major hurricanes, and 13-16 named storms. According to the agency, the "normal" number of such storms is six hurricanes, two major hurricanes, and 11 named storms.²

There were six hurricanes during the season, only two of which were classified as "major," category three or more on the Saffir-Simpson scale.³

The sixth hurricane came only three days before the official end of the hurricane season when NOAA's National Hurricane Center (NHC) quietly upgraded tropical storm Karen to hurricane status.⁴ The timing of the re-designation - at the moment hurricane season post-mortems were already running in newspapers throughout the country - may have struck some as a bit suspicious.