Somehow, Florida’s Record Setting Hurricane Drought Is A Bad Thing

by William Teach | October 8, 2014 8:15 am

The Washington Post Capital Weather Gang is known for it’s Big Warmist positions, including James Samenow. Only a Warmist would be this concerned

Why Florida’s record-setting hurricane drought portends danger[1]

Florida has gone 3,270 days without a hurricane – nearly nine years and, by far, the longest stretch on record (the next longest streak is 5 seasons from 1980-1984, in records dating back to 1851). Meanwhile, the Sunshine state’s population and development have boomed.

Florida is long overdue for a destructive hurricane and has never had so many people and so much property in the way. This dangerous state of affairs is compounded by the potential for complacency and lack of recent experience. When hurricanes don’t strike over such a long period of time, some people may be lulled into a false sense of security and/or forget how horrible hurricanes can be.

In other words, they’re Very Concerned that their prognostications for big hurricane seasons being the new normal have crashed and burned, and they really, really, really want so fantastic hurricanes to strike Florida. Remember, the original prognostication was that the normal would look like the 2005 season, which was very active, and included lots of major hurricanes, with lots of storms making landfall. That prognostication immediately died on the vine as hurricane activity, particularly for landfalling storms, dropped precipitously. So, the next palm reading stated that hurricane activity would be normal or lower, but the storms would be worse. Nope. Didn’t happen.

And then there are newcomer Floridians who haven’t ever had to endure a hurricane. Weather.com notes that more than 1 million people have moved to Florida since Wilma in 2005, the last hurricane to hit the state. “That’s potentially 1 million people who are inexperienced with the impacts of hurricanes and tropical storms and lack the experience boarding up a home, cleaning out a flooded home or battling mandatory evacuation traffic,” Weather.com writes[2].

Wilma was the last major hurricane to strike the United States, and, if there are no major hurricane landfalls by November 23rd, that will be the new records for the longest period without a landfalling major hurricane, 3316 days, the previous record having been during the Civil War era.

It’s not a matter of if but when an active cycle of hurricanes returns to Florida. In 2004 and 2005 alone, seven hurricanes hit (Charley, Frances, Jeanne, and Ivan in 2004; Dennis, Katrina, and Wilma in 2005.).

That is true. At some point, a hurricane is going to strike Florida. And the minute one does, it will be blamed on “climate change”, much like with Superstorm Sandy (which was made worse by interaction with a big cold front).

There are some good points, getting beyond all the doomy talk, about the danger of people becoming complacent, as well as there being so many more people and so many more properties, many with much higher values. That said, this is what is referred to as “wish casting” by Delaware Jack in the comments, who notes that many news outlets portend doom and gloom for every storm that occurs. I’d contend that wish casting has moved from hoping for ratings over normal storm doom to wish casting to blame every rain drop, dry period, snow storm, etc, on “climate change”.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove[3]. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach[4].

Endnotes:
  1. Why Florida’s record-setting hurricane drought portends danger: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/10/07/why-floridas-record-setting-hurricane-drought-portends-danger/
  2. Weather.com writes: http://www.weather.com/news/weather-hurricanes/florida-hurricane-free-streak-luck-run-out-20140801
  3. Pirate’s Cove: http://www.thepiratescove.us/
  4. @WilliamTeach: http://twitter.com/WilliamTeach

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