What happened to predictions of a ‘historic’ hurricane season?

As weeks went by with no hurricane activity, Phil Klotzbach could feel the pressure building. He and the rest of the meteorology world had predicted a potentially historic hurricane season, and yet, during what would normally be the most active stretch of tropical storms, the Atlantic Ocean was eerily quiet.

Even his running buddies, with no knowledge of meteorology, began to ask: Where are all the hurricanes?

As the author of one of the most trusted and longest-running hurricane season outlooks, he considered issuing an unprecedented midseason update in late August acknowledging the chances this year’s forecast could be a bust. He held off in case a new system formed over Labor Day weekend.

That didn’t happen.

Now, the Atlantic is making history for an unexpected and confounding distinction: It’s the longest stretch in more than half a century without a single late-summer cyclone, a time of year when several often churn at once. Though two months of storm risks still lie ahead, the astonishing lull has meteorologists wrestling with confusion and criticism, while striving to protect delicate public trust.

“Everyone was going big,” Klotzbach said, citing predictions of a flurry of more than two dozen storms. “It wasn’t like there were two or three models that said something else.”

There are questions about whether planetary warming could be so extreme, it supercharged the storms that managed to form but has also allowed fewer to materialize. The quiet Atlantic stands in contrast to a dynamic Pacific typhoon season and yet another record-hot Northern Hemisphere summer that spread deadly temperatures, massive fires and overwhelming floods around the globe.

Even as meteorologists can detect factors contributing to the lull, they are struggling to understand why those factors have overwhelmed weather conditions that might otherwise fuel intense storm after storm. Many who warned the public to prepare for a dangerous summer and fall are now caught in the awkward position of almost rooting for storms, lest they end up eating crow - and losing the public’s confidence - when their predictions fall flat come November.

Initial forecasts of a historic season seemed spot on when Beryl became the earliest monster Category 5 hurricane ever seen in July. The storm devastated Caribbean islands and Texas, but only reassured Klotzbach of Colorado State University’s hurricane season outlook, which he has led for nearly 20 years. His prediction included several storms of Beryl’s caliber. Others agreed.

“It seemed like such an obvious, easy forecast,” Klotzbach said. Instead, chances are high that Thursday will mark a full month since a named storm formed in the tropical Atlantic.

“It’s definitely taken me by surprise,” he added. “I think any meteorologist being honest would say the same.”

Ripe for hurricanes

The ingredients to support an active hurricane season are abundant, just as forecasters had predicted.

Ocean temperatures have been extraordinarily warm across the Atlantic (and much of the globe) for a year and a half, providing stores of fuel for storms that will last at least until the Northern Hemisphere’s winter.

And a La Niña climate pattern - known for producing favorable wind patterns for Atlantic storms - has been building for months. Its arrival is likely imminent.

That outlook was enough for confident predictions of one of the most active hurricane seasons in a long string of active seasons.

“This season is looking to be an extraordinary one,” NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said in May.

But for much of the past month, those conditions have not fueled storms.

The trend could be a sneak preview of future decades, in which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted climate change could make hurricanes less frequent, while encouraging a higher proportion of them to become monster storms.

So far this year, the tropical atmosphere has been much too stable for storms to develop because of unusual warming observed in the upper layers of the troposphere. Normally, a clash between surface warmth and cold air aloft helps fuel rising atmospheric motion that incites storm development.

Meanwhile, many atmospheric seeds of what could become hurricanes have fizzled as they drifted from African monsoon clouds into the Atlantic much farther north than normal, just outside a band of tropical waters most hospitable to budding storms.

The monsoon is strong, something that would normally mean more waves of atmospheric disturbance cast into the Atlantic. Rain has poured on parts of the Sahara that haven’t seen any in 40 years, while other parts of West Africa have seen double their normal rainfall, said Matthew Rosencrans, NOAA’s lead seasonal hurricane forecaster. But the monsoon is too far north to have an impact on the Atlantic, it seems - something meteorologists have never had to account for.

“It’s kind of hard to predict something in the system that you’ve never seen before,” Rosencrans said.

Fears of a busted forecast

It’s a scenario all meteorologists are prepared for, but hope to avoid: a busted forecast. And given how dire their warnings were months ago, it is testing them like no hurricane season in recent history.

They are the first to admit seasonal forecasting barely resembles the sort of higher confidence weather predictions that guide decisions about whether to leave the house with an umbrella or put on a heavy jacket.

Seasonal forecasts can evaluate whether storms are more likely to form. But, because they are made months in advance, they don’t have the ability to foretell where an African monsoon will land, for example.

“These are factors that are not fully understood by anyone,” said Jon Porter, chief meteorologist for AccuWeather, which recently downgraded its own predictions for this year’s hurricane season.

Climate change may be making it even harder to make long-term hurricane predictions, Rosencrans said. Forecasters have to account not just for how known conditions have contributed to storm activity in the past, but how changing Earth systems could affect storm activity in the future.

When he was studying to become a meteorologist, he remembers learning that there are two kinds of forecasters: those who have already gotten it wrong and those who will.

“It’s in those cases when it doesn’t go correct when you can learn the most,” Rosencrans said.

Facing public doubt

While they search for those lessons, forecasters are standing by their predictions. They cite statistics that show how much time and risk remains: “There’s still 60 percent of the hurricane season left to go,” Rosencrans said. “We could still end up with another 10 named storms this year, easily.”

That’s because forecasters like Klotzbach hear plenty from the doubters.

“Why would you trust forecasts, literally ever?” one X user responded to Klotzbach in mockery on Wednesday.

“Safe to assume federal monies encourage aggressive forecasts for severe weather,” another suggested.

If more hurricanes don’t materialize soon, the confusion could have lasting impact.

Research has shown the “cry wolf” effect - when warnings of extreme weather don’t come true - can cause people to disregard future forecasts. Careful communication of forecast uncertainties can counteract that, said Tobias Vorlaufer, a researcher at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research in Germany.

But what if forecasters don’t know to issue such caveats?

“Our brain is just wired in a way to really remember when forecasts were wrong,” Vorlaufer said. “We kind of forget the seasons where the forecast was more accurate.”

For Klotzbach, who ended up writing a 30-page account of why this hurricane season has confounded expectations, transparency is the best strategy, he said. He knows the dire forecasts mean more people are paying attention to what is happening in the tropical Atlantic. And he knows that means public trust in his work is at risk.

“That’s not something you want to lose,” he said.