Gay Nagle Myers
It begins tomorrow, June 1. Officially it will last six months. Unofficially, it could be longer.
"It" is the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, which could be another bump in the road for a region that is recovering from the past two years of Covid shutdown.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its hurricane forecast on May 24, following earlier forecasts issued by Colorado State University, AccuWeather and the Weather Channel, among others.
I'm just the messenger, but if the forecasts are accurate, the Caribbean and parts of the U.S. are in for another wild ride, marking the seventh consecutive year of an above-average hurricane season. The previous two hurricane seasons ran out of names due to the number of storms and had to resort to using the Greek alphabet.
NOAA predicted that 14 to 21 named storms will develop this season, including tropical storms with wind speeds of 39 mph or higher and hurricanes with wind speeds beginning at 74 mph.
Remember 2019 when Hurricane Dorian slammed into Grand Bahama Island and the Abacos? Or the one-two punch delivered in 2017 by hurricanes Irma and Maria, which significantly impacted eight island nations and territories?
Much progress has been made in the years since those devastating storms, although blue tarps still drape damaged roofs in parts of Puerto Rico, the Abacos, Dominica and elsewhere. Reconstruction and repairs ground to a halt during the Covid shutdown.
Hotels begin hurricane-season guarantees
As always, many hotels and resorts are rolling out their hurricane guarantees for guests.
One of the first to do so was the Holiday Inn Resort Montego Bay in Jamaica, which relaunched its annual policy in mid-May.
Guests holding confirmed reservations with nonrefundable deposits and are unable to travel due to the closure of Montego Bay's Sangster airport caused by a Category 1 or higher storm can rebook for a future stay without penalty.
If a Cat 1 storm hits mid-stay and disrupts resort operations for more than 24 hours, guests on property will receive a certificate valid for a free future stay.
What some forecasts say
Colorado State's forecast calls for 19 named storms, nine hurricanes and four category 3, 4 or 5 hurricanes, according to Dr. Philip Klotzbach, a research scientist in the department of atmospheric science at the university.
"We have over 150 years of hurricane data, but it's really been pretty reliable back to the 1950s. We build a statistical model on the last 40 years of data because we have high resolution ocean temperature data spanning 40 years of hurricane systems," Klotzbach said.
The university's forecast included the probability of major hurricanes making landfall this year, with a 60% probability for the Caribbean region and a 71% probability for the U.S. coastline.
This year is expected to be above average due in part to La Nina, which features warmer than usual ocean temperatures and weaker wind shear expected to persist through the hurricane season, according to Dr. Rick Spinrad, NOAA administrator.
This year's hurricane names
Here's the list of Atlantic storm names for 2022: Alex, Bonnie, Colin, Danielle, Earl, Fiona, Gaston, Hermine, Ian, Julia, Karl, Lisa, Martin, Nicole, Owen, Paula, Richard, Shary, Tobias, Virginie and Walter.