Where`s The (Hurricane) Beef?

This is the time of year that people usually start complaining about the lame hurricane season. The truth is however that hurricane season doesn't usually get cranking until August, in fact on average, we're probably running about average with 1 storm declared so far.

However, this year was not predicted to be average, and more importantly, last year was most certainly not average. Compared to last year, we're 3 storms AND 3 landfalls behind. In fact, this time last year, Cat 4 Hurricane Dennis was over Cuba, heading towards the Gulf coast. Arlene and Cindy already had already made landfall on the Gulf coast (Bret had also made landfall in Mexico).

And this time 10 years ago, I was in the middle of Hurricane Bertha. (More reminiscing on that next week).

So what's up? Well, everyone has said that 2006 will be no 2005. So we shouldn't be surprised that we're behind this year. Some have argued that the low pressure that "made landfall" in eastern North Carolina (at the tail end of the East Coast flooding last week) should have been named, and it's possible (but not likely) that this system off the Southeast coast this weekend could get named. Even if it doesn't, watch out for vicious rip currents and heavy coastal rain in the Carolinas.

Joe Bastardi said in his blog this morning: