2017 Northern Hemisphere Hurricane Activity Pretty Much Totally Normal
Philip Lotzbach of Colorado State University tweeted this summary chart of the 2017 hurricane season. The numbers in parenthesis represent the historical average.
After an unusual number of years of being missed by major hurricanes, the US was hit by several large hurricanes in an above-average Atlantic hurricane season in 2017. But as is typical of weather, while the Atlantic had more hurricanes than average, other parts of the world had fewer than average, such that overall for the northern hemisphere as a whole, it was a pretty average year.
OpportunityCost:
Klotzbach, not Lotzbach.
November 20, 2017, 11:21 amVariant:
Gesundheit!
November 20, 2017, 1:36 pmOpportunityCost:
(blows nose) Thank you.
November 20, 2017, 2:27 pmErikTheRed:
Yeah, but if a hurricane doesn't trend on social media, did it actually happen?
November 20, 2017, 2:32 pmSamWah:
So, just our bad luck, eh? Or, the law of averages Strikes Again!
November 20, 2017, 3:28 pmcc:
Set up a target on a hard floor. Set a top spinning. See if it hits the target. Do it over and over. That is what hurricanes are like, spinning random objects. We only count them if they hit the US but that is a narcissistic metric.
November 21, 2017, 8:35 amThe_Big_W:
Yes!
November 22, 2017, 2:53 pmMatthew Slyfield:
"We only count them if they hit the US but that is a narcissistic metric."
Way back when we only counted hurricanes that made landfall. However, in the satellite era, they count every fish storm (tropical storms and hurricanes that only affect fish)
November 25, 2017, 12:15 pmDon:
Judith Curry state years ago that she saw no rise in total cyclonic energy world-wide in her studies. I don't think that has changed.
November 28, 2017, 9:05 amAn Inquirer:
That is true.
December 1, 2017, 2:58 am