By William M. Gray and Philip J. Klotzbach, Colorado State University

In case, you missed it, Dr. Gray’s and Dr. Klotzbach’s 2008 April Hurricane Season Forecast is now available on-line. Please see the full April technical discusssion and forecast here. See the U.S. Landfalling Probability home page here. Here is a brief excerpt:

Information obtained through March 2008 indicates that the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season will be much more active than the average 1950-2000 season. We estimate that 2008 will have about 8 hurricanes (average is 5.9), 15 named storms (average is 9.6), 80 named storm days (average is 49.1), 40 hurricane days (average is 24.5), 4 intense (Category 3-4-5) hurricanes (average is 2.3) and 9 intense hurricane days (average is 5.0). The probability of U.S. major hurricane landfall is estimated to be about 135 percent of the long-period average. We expect Atlantic basin Net Tropical Cyclone (NTC) activity in 2008 to be approximately 160 percent of the long-term average. We have increased our seasonal forecast from early December. We forecast a probability of U.S. landfall at 95% (climatology is 84%), Gulf Coast 77% (climatology is 60%) and East Coast from Florida North 78% (climatology 61%).

This is the 25th year in which the CSU Tropical Meteorology Project has made forecasts of the upcoming season’s Atlantic basin hurricane activity. Our research team has shown that a sizable portion of the year-to-year variability of Atlantic tropical cyclone (TC) activity can be hindcast with skill exceeding climatology. These forecasts are based on a statistical methodology derived from 58 years of past data and a separate study of analog years which have similar precursor circulation features to the current season. We believe that seasonal forecasts must be based on methods that show significant hindcast skill in application to long periods of prior data. It is only through hindcast skill that one can demonstrate that seasonal forecast skill is possible. This is a valid methodology provided that the atmosphere continues to behave in the future as it has in the past.

Dr. Gray spoke at the Weather Conference in thr Bahamas as he does each year on hurrricanes and touched on global warming. Each year, there is some alarmist also present to counter Bill and all the other hurricane experts who agree with him. This year it was Tom Knutsen. See his arrogant and frankly weak dismissal of Dr. Gray’s compelling arguments that the variances of the thermohaline circulations are the primary control of the climate cycles and that we can not properly model the climate with all the complexities and greatly overstate the importance of CO2 (Bill’s full presentation soon to be visible on the Heartland ICCC conference web site) and defense of the climate models here.