Tropical Season Comes To An End For 2014

As hurricane seasons go, this has been a quiet one for those of us in the Gulf South. We've had very few disturbances and threats in our part of the world over the course of the season. That doesn't mean the season wasn't active. It just wasn't active where we live and what's good for us is usually not so good for someone else. But all in all most of the coastal United States fared pretty well this year.

There are people in the media who like to scrutinize weather forecasters and point out where they were wrong. I think this  year the forecasters did an outstanding job of predicting something that is almost unpredictable.

The National Hurricane Center in their preseason forecast speculated that the Atlantic Basin would see 7-12 named storms. The actual number of named storms in the Atlantic Basin was 8. I count that as an accurate prediction.

The Hurricane Center said of those 7-12 named storms 3-6 of them would reach hurricane status. The actual number of storms to reach hurricane intensity was 6. That looks like a bankable forecast to me too.

When it comes to major hurricanes, the Hurricane Center suggested in their early season forecast that 2 of the storms that reached hurricane intensity would achieve the status of major hurricane, category 3 or higher. The actual number of storms reach category 3 or higher was 2. That is right on the money.

The only state that was affected by a direct hit of a land falling storm this season was North Carolina. That occurred with the season's first storm, Arthur, in July. Hawaii was also affected by storms in the Pacific but we're focusing on the Atlantic basin.

The season comes to an end on Sunday November 30th. For six months we can breath easy about  tropical weather and not be concerned with the  cone of uncertainty until next June when the tropical season will begin to heat up again.