2022 CSU forecast: Above-average hurricane season

We are less than two months away from the official start of hurricane season and the forecasts have started to come in. There are many forecasts released, from official weather entities to weather enthusiasts, but we only really follow two that have the most reliable weather and climate basis: The National Hurricane Center’s and Colorado State University's forecasts.

Phil Klotzbach, a distinguished professor from Colorado State University released their hurricane season forecast for the Atlantic Basin on Thursday, April 7. Dr. Klotzbach is the late Dr. Bill Gray’s protégé who pioneered these types of forecasts since 1984. Dr. Gray passed away in 2016.

The 2022 Atlantic hurricane season calls for above-average activity. Colorado State University’s experts predict 19 named tropical systems, of which 9 could be hurricanes and out of those hurricanes 4 could become major hurricanes.

The average season has 14 named storms, seven of which are likely to be hurricanes, with three becoming major hurricanes.

Water temperatures across the subtropical Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea are warmer than normal while the tropical Atlantic is near average. But the sea surface temperatures which are above-average across the subtropical areas during the month of March are the ones that correlate with above-average hurricane seasons. Warmer waters serve as fuel for tropical systems to develop.

Another reason that the season might be more active than normal is because El Niño’s chance of showing up during the most active months, August through September, is about 10 percent. While La Niña or neutral conditions have about 45 percent of each showing up.

Like the last two summers, although La Niña has not been present, there have been traces of this phenomenon lingering through the summer months and coming back during the last two winters. In fact, CSU experts state that the conditions present during this 2022 season are like the conditions present during 2008, 2012, and 2021 years.

El Niño or La Niña are climatic patterns that occur in the equatorial Pacific but bring weather consequences all over the globe. When La Niña is present, tropical activity is suppressed over the Pacific, but it is enhanced in the Atlantic Basin. Specifically, La Niña relaxed the vertical wind shear in the Atlantic which allows tropical systems to continue their growing cycles.

These types of forecasts should be used as guidance. Remember, it only takes one tropical storm or hurricane to impact your location to make it a busy season for you. Also, this or any season forecast does not discuss locations of landfall as those are impossible to predict without a current system to analyze.