Forecast: 1997 will make history

By DAVID BALLINGRUD

©St. Petersburg Times, published June 3, 1997

If Bill Gray's predictions for 1997 hurricane activity hold true, history will be made this year.

Professor Gray, who leads a team of highly regarded hurricane forecasters at Colorado State University, says this June-through-November season will be the third consecutive year of above-average hurricane activity.

That would make 1995, 1998 and 1997 the most active three-year span in history. More troublesome than the record, however, is what it might mean. Gray says the higher storm activity of recent years might mark the beginning of a long-term trend.

"More and more it's looking like we have left a period of lessened hurricane activity," Gray said in a statement. "We could be seeing a basic change in the long-term global circulation patterns that could lead to more hurricanes.

"What's particularly disturbing," Gray said, "is this change would likely increase the number of major hurricanes."

With that in mind, here's Gray's forecast, which will be updated twice before season's end, but should not change substantially:

There will be 11 tropical storms. Seven of the storms will reach hurricane strength with sustained winds of 74 mph or greater. Three of the hurricanes will become intense, or major hurricanes with sustained wind strength of 111 miles per hour or greater.

The corresponding numbers in an average year are 9.3 tropical storms, 5.8 hurricanes, 2.1 major hurricanes.

Gray points to two factors that suggest above-average activity for 1997.

First, there will be no El Nino -- a name given to describe warmer-than-usual water temperatures off the coast of Peru. When El Nino conditions do exist in those waters, upper level winds over the Atlantic knock the tops off developing storms.

There will be no such help this year.

Next, very high-level winds (68,000 to 75,000 feet) will blow generally from the west, another condition favoring storm development. Gray's predictions are for storms in the Atlantic Basin, made of the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

Through the years, his predictions have earned him credibility with weather experts, and his team now includes former student Chris Landsea, a researcher at NOAA's Hurricane Research Lab in Miami.

Despite his track record, Gray makes no prediction of where storms will strike.