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If quiet continues, thank El Nino

Hurricane season has been less active than predicted, and it could be due to warming equatorial waters.

By PAT FARNAN
Published September 14, 2006

The outlook for the 2006 hurricane season is getting better after forecasters announced Wednesday that El Nino had formed.

The phenomenon warms equatorial waters and tends to suppress hurricane activity. It is expected to last into 2007 and has already affected this hurricane season.

"The weak El Nino is helping to explain why the hurricane season is less than we expected," said Gary Bell, a hurricane forecaster for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Forecasters earlier this year predicted as many as 17 named storms in the Atlantic Basin, which includes the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

A tropical depression in the eastern Atlantic on Wednesday became the eighth named storm of the season, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. The center of Tropical Storm Helene was about 565 miles west of the southernmost Cape Verde islands at 11 p.m. EDT.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Gordon strengthened over the open Atlantic to a Category 3 storm, with top sustained winds near 120 mph, the hurricane center said. It was not expected to affect land.

"We think El Nino could reduce the number of storms in the second half of the season," said Chris Landsea, science and operations officer for the hurricane center.

"It's been a fairly normal season so far, but we haven't really seen the intensity, we haven't seen any major hurricanes," he said.

El Nino, or "the boy" in Spanish, hits about every three years. It was named in the 19th century by South American fishermen who noticed that it showed up around Christmas and named it after the Christ child.

The phenomenon involves the movement of warm surface waters from the western Pacific to the eastern Pacific. It encourages upper-level winds that thwart the formation of hurricanes or reduce their intensity.

Beyond hurricanes, El Nino could have severe effects on global weather.

Forecasters said it will bring warmer temperatures this winter to the western and northern United States, and wetter-than-normal conditions to Florida and much of the Gulf Coast.

But for hurricane-battered Floridians, El Nino was still welcome news.

"Last year was a record season, and the year before we had four hurricanes striking Florida," Landsea said. "But we all know, it only takes one hurricane to change everything."

[Last modified September 14, 2006, 10:20:24]