2022 PREDICTIONS

Last year's hurricane season (2021) saw the number of named storms fall well short of the record number of 30 storms we had in 2020. The 21 named storms last year, however, were still the 3rd most ever in a season, and it marked the 2nd year in a row, 3rd time ever, that the seasonal storm name list was exhausted. That list has 21 names every year, using a name for every letter of the English alphabet except the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z.

The 21 storms last year, following the 30 storm record season of 2020, easily broke the record for the number of named storms in a 2 year period. That record now stands at 51. The record for a 3 year period was also broken. That now stands at 69, falling 1 storm short of the previous record for number of storms in a 4 year period, which was shattered last year and now sits at 84. 84 storms in the last 4 years! The entire decade of the 1980's had 93 storms.

Despite the extremely heavy activity in the tropics, particularly recently, prediction outlets have been falling well short of the mark. Even for one of the leaders in tropical storm predictions, Colorado State University. The last 3 years have particularly been off the mark for the folks at CSU. Last year they predicted 17 storms, we had 21. The year before they predicted 16 storms, we had 30. In 2019 they had 13 storms predicted, we had 18. That's 46 predicted storms the last 3 years where 69 actually formed. To be fair, the 2020 record outbreak skews that some. Taking just 2019 and 2021 into account, they predicted 30 storms, 39 was the actual total. Not as egregious as 46/69, but certainly well on the conservative side.

This year's initial prediction from Colorado State, which usually comes out in early April, has another above average season. 19 named storms are predicted this year by CSU. Of those, 9 are expected to become hurricanes with 4 of those becoming major hurricanes. They may finally be catching up with the times as the 19 storm prediction is the most they've ever predicted.

Above average sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic, despite being in a weak La Niña, that is expected to become neutral as the summer progresses, factors into this prediction. La Niña usually means conditions are more favorable for storms to form in the Atlantic. Stronger La Niña, more storms. Weaker La Niña, or neutral, should be about average. Even though CSU uses an average from 1991 to 2021, which is just about 14 storms per season, the average number of storms the last 10 years has been just under 17 storms per season. So with an ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation), which determines whether we're in La Niña or El Niño, slightly on the La Niña side, the forecast is slightly above average of the last 10 years. El Niño conditions, by the way, usually suppress tropical storm formation in the Atlantic.

CSU goes on to predict that there's a 71% chance that one of the 4 predicted major hurricanes makes U.S. landfall. They have a 47% of a major striking the U.S. east coast, including Florida, and a 46% chance of a major strike along the Gulf coast from the Florida panhandle to Brownsville, TX.

State by state predictions are also made. There's an 80% probability that a named storm strikes the Texas coast. That's the 5th highest probability. There's a 54% chance a hurricane makes Texas landfall, the 4th highest percentage, and the one we really don't want to hear here in the Lone Star State is that Texas has the 2nd highest probability for a landfalling MAJOR hurricane. The rankings fall in line climatologically for Texas, but the percentages are higher than normal. Typically Texas has about a 61% chance of a named storm making landfall, 36% for a hurricane and 16% for a major hurricane.

Last year Texas had a 75% chance of a named storm making landfall, a 49% chance for landfalling hurricane, and a 21% chance for a major hurricane. Last year there was no major to strike Texas, but we did get category 1 Hurricane Nicholas making landfall near Matagorda. And that became a hurricane just an hour or two before making landfall.

Predictions though, are just that. Predictions. Last year, during an active La Niña where storm formation is more favorable, we had 20 named storm by the end of September, already the 3rd most in a season ever. And there were still 2 months of the season left in these favorable conditions. But for some unknown reason, the tropics shut down after September. One storm (Wanda), was the only system that formed the rest of the season, and that was from a nor'easter late in October that made the transition to tropical in the northern Atlantic. That was it. The season went from hyper active to dead once the calendar flipped to October.  We could see something similar to that this year with activity early in a weak La Niña, then becoming less active later when we move to a more neutral ENSO.

Regardless, it only takes one storm, no matter how many are predicted or actually occur, to bring on death and destruction. Here in Texas we'll always have Hurricane Alicia as an example of that, where there were only 4 named storms that season.