Fierce, Busy Storm Season Ahead, Experts Say

Gerry Bell, the lead hurricane forecaster with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, said an "active hurricane era" began in 1995 and is associated with warm Atlantic Ocean surface temperatures.

It is not certain how long the era will last, he said, but others have lasted 25 to 40 years. NOAA forecasters said they are not exactly sure what role global warming might have played in recent active hurricane seasons.

Bell said the transition from the warm Pacific water of El Niño to the cooler water of La Niña -- with the warm water in the Atlantic -- is an indicator of possible trouble.

The El Niño phenomenon tends to produce wind shear, or radical changes in wind direction, in the layers of the atmosphere over the Atlantic, Bell said. Wind shear works against the formation of hurricanes.

La Niña reduces wind shear in the Atlantic and produces more uniform atmospheric wind conditions that are favorable to hurricane formation, he said.

It might seem amazing that water temperature in the Pacific affects the weather in the Atlantic, but as William M. Gray, professor emeritus of atmospheric science at Colorado State, said this week: "The whole atmosphere beats as one unit."

Government officials at the airport said yesterday that they were prepared for a busy storm season. They displayed three Air Force Reserve and NOAA hurricane observation and research airplanes.

They said NOAA would use a new mathematical modeling system this year that would better predict storm tracks. The Air Force Reserve planes were being equipped with a new kind of "radiometer" that calculates surface wind speed by measuring radiation emitted from sea foam, they said.

The Atlantic hurricane season begins June 1, peaks in August and September, and ends Nov. 30.