Will the 420000 people homeless in Haiti dodge a major tropical cyclone

Agent-x - June 1 2012, 6:50 PM

According to wunderground-com on on 1 June 2012 by Dr. Jeff Masters, Will the 420000 people still homeless in Haiti in the wake of the January 2010 earthquake dodge a major tropical cyclone flooding disaster for the third consecutive hurricane season?

The 2012 Atlantic hurricane season begins: what is in store?

It's June 1st, and the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season is officially underway.

With two early season storms, Alberto and Beryl, having already come and gone, this year's season has gotten off to a near-record early start.

Since reliable record keeping began in 1851, only the hurricane seasons of 1908 and 1887 had two named storms form so early in the year. So, will this early pace continue?

What will this year's hurricane season bring?

Here are my top five questions for the coming season:

1) All of the major seasonal hurricane forecasts are calling for a near-average season, with 10 - 13 named storms.

Will these pre-season predictions pan out?

2) How will the steering current pattern evolve?

Will the U.S. break its six-year run without a major hurricane landfall, the longest such streak since 1861 - 1868?

3) Will the 420,000 people still homeless in Haiti in the wake of the January 2010 earthquake dodge a major tropical cyclone flooding disaster for the third consecutive hurricane season?

4) How will new National Hurricane Center director Rick Knabb fare in his inaugural season?

5) Will the Republican National Convention, scheduled to occur in Tampa during the last week of August, get interrupted by a tropical storm or hurricane?

Figure 1. True-color MODIS satellite image of Beryl taken at 2:35 pm EDT May 27, 2012 by NASA's Aqua satellite.

At the time, Beryl was a tropical storm with winds of 65 mph.

Quick summary of the early-season atmosphere/ocean conditions in the Atlantic
Strong upper-level winds tend to create a shearing force on tropical storms (wind shear), which tears them apart before they can get going.

In June, two branches of the jet stream, the polar jet to the north, and a subtropical jet to the south, typically bring high levels of wind shear to the Atlantic.

The southern subtropical jet currently lies over the Caribbean, and is expected to remain there the next two weeks, making development unlikely in the Caribbean.

Between the subtropical jet to the south and the polar jet to the north, a "hole" in the wind shear pattern formed during May off the Southeast U.S. coast, and this is where both Alberto and Beryl were able to form. Their formation was aided by the fact ocean temperatures off the U.S. East coast are quite warm--about 1 - 2

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