While the country is recovering from the earthquake, more trouble is on the way. Thanks to Alan S.

By Joseph D’Aleo and Joe Bastardi, Weatherbell Analytics

Before the spring, we warned out readers on Weatherbell and Icecap that the spring would feature major drought, record floods, major tornado outbreaks - including places outside tornado alley in the south and Ohio Valley. We also warned that the late summer and fall would see very impactful with respect to hurricanes, with a special focus on the east coast.

This was not based on hype or self promotion but a serious concern based on over 70 years experience. You see we just came out of one of the strongest La Ninas on record, the Pacific has turned cold (negative PDO), the Atlantic still warm (positive AMO). La Nina we expected would slowly weaken but then reprise. In the past, when these conditions existed (like from the 1940s to early 1960s), we had more, stronger, longer La Ninas, and more snow and cold in winter, flooding and drought in spring, more tornado outbreaks and east coast hurricanes.

See on this plot how the cold PDO (bottom graph blue) and warm AMO was similar from 1944 to 1962 (during which 7 major hurricanes hit the east coast). The hurricane of ‘38 actually popped in a year with a briefly cold PDO and warm AMO.

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Irene is a major hurricane. It will become a storm that will produce biillions, very possibly tens of billions of dollars of damage to the east coast. Areas from the Carolinas north to the Delmarva, New Jersey, Long Island and New England could see storm surges that flood coastal areas. If the storm were to head to New York City as some of the models suggest, flooding would occur even in the city in areas depending at storm strength category. Millions are likely to be left without power for days all through the east. 

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Come to Weatherbell.com and sign up for access to our stream of blogs and forecasts on Irene and other storms that may follow this year and will follow for years to come. By the way, winter is coming and it looks like another wild one. In addition to blogging for weather enthusiasts, we provide reasonably priced specialized forecasts for energy, agriculture and industry. Though we cover events in the near term, we use our knowledge of global teleconnections to provide skillful medium and long range forecasts. You see these natural factors which by the way determine the multi-decadal cycles that AGWers used to claim CO2 was driving climate, give us a many month lead time on seasonal patterns and extremes.