Hurricane season ain't over 'til it's over

MIAMI - Nov. 10, 2010 - Hurricane season 2010 is already one for the record books, tying for third most active with 19 named storms. Three weeks remain in the official season and a disorganized disturbance is drifting in the Caribbean about where Tomas was two weeks ago.

In other words, as National Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen put it, "Don't raid the hurricane supplies yet. It's not over until it's over."

But with the days, and chances, dwindling until the season ends on Nov. 30, South Florida is close to once again dodging a hail of tropical bullets - along with the entire United States mainland.

So far, there have been a dozen hurricanes and not one has made landfall in the U.S. - a streak of good fortune not seen in more than 100 years, according to Adam Lea, a hurricane researcher at University College London.

"Certainly, from a U.S. perspective, it's been a very lucky year," said Phil Klotzbach, a researcher who along with colleague William Gray produces Colorado State University's closely watched long-term hurricane forecasts.

Lea, researching records back to 1900, found that in five previous seasons with 10 or more hurricanes, at least two storms made landfall somewhere in the states. Unless something really serious forms in the next three weeks, it would also be the fifth year in a row that the U.S. has escaped a major hurricane.

In one way, the season went almost exactly as forecasters predicted in March. During the past decade, global weather patterns and warm Atlantic Ocean temperatures have created unusually active seasons with seven of the dozen busiest years on record occurring since 2000, including a record 28 storms in 2005, and they expected that trend to continue.

In early August, Klotzbach and Gray predicted 18 named storms. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the National Hurricane Center, also predicted a 70 percent chance of 14 to 20 named storms.

That's pretty much nailing the numbers.

But active years typically raise risks of U.S. landfall and damage. This year, only Hurricane Earl, which brushed the East Coast but caused massive flooding in portions of North Carolina, and Tropical Storm Hermine, which came ashore as a depression and triggered flooding in Texas blamed for at least six deaths, have done any significant damage.

South Florida had close calls with both tropical storms Bonnie and Nicole, but escaped only a bit wet and ruffled.

Scientists and hurricane center forecasters credit several things for buffering the U.S. this year. Some of the tropical waves that roll each summer off the African coast formed into storms so quickly that they had to fight to survive a long gantlet of wind shear and other hostile conditions. A series of troughs also continually moved across the mainland, curving storms to the north through an alley that opened when the famous "Bermuda High" shifted east.

Stanley Goldenberg, a meteorologist in the hurricane research division of NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory on Key Biscayne, Fla., points out that plenty of the storms this year either made landfall or caused problems in other countries.

The most recent, Tomas, skirted Haiti but caused widespread flooding and killed at least 20 there, 14 more in St. Lucia. Bermuda got both hit and brushed. Belize, Mexico, Cuba and Honduras also were struck by storms or hurricanes.

"Overall, I would still the impact was less than typical for such a busy year," Goldenberg said. "Thankfully."

Copyright © 2010 The Miami Herald, Curtis Morgan.