News Conference on the 2007 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook

Release Date: May 22, 2007

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010
Arlington, Va.

Mr. Franklin: Good morning. Welcome to the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season outlook. My name is Anson Franklin, Director of Communications with NOAA. We have several speakers here today to talk about the hurricane outlook.

We have information about the sequence of appearance in your press kits. And as soon as they finish speaking, we will have about – we will have a few minutes to take questions from you. And at that point, I’ll just point out the questioner, then we’ll take it from there.

Starting off is the Administrator of NOAA, Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher.

Admiral Lautenbacher: Thank you, Anson. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you all for coming today. This is, I think, as everybody realizes, the first event of National Hurricane Awareness Week. This is our Atlantic seasonal outlook, and one of our most highly anticipated announcements – and for good reason. As I think most people know, our coasts are becoming more populated. There are 153 million people living in our coastal areas in the United States. Fifty-three percent of our population lives in coastal areas, and a good number of those Americans live in hurricane-prone areas.

Now, what we’ve found is that the growth continues in these areas. If you look at Florida, for instance, from 1950 through the year 2000, there has been a 500 percent growth in population. Coastal areas continue to be more and more popular for people to move.

We are right now in what we call a period of more active hurricane seasons. An active season increases the possibility of land-falling hurricanes, but before I give you the numbers, let me be sure that – it just takes one hurricane to make it a bad year for everyone here. So if there’s one or 21, we are here today to ensure that the American public and all those that are concerned with hurricane management and recovery take into account the potential for this season and are prepared.

Now, the outlook for this year, as I mentioned, we’re in above-normal Atlantic hurricane seasonal period. We are forecasting 13 to 17 named storms, of which seven to 10 will become hurricanes, and three to five of those hurricanes will be in the major category, or category 3 strength and higher.

I want to mention that the ability to be able to do these forecasts, as well as the forecasts during the season, have been the results of hours – thousands of hours of work by our scientists and by scientists in academia, public and private, to work on an extraordinary partnership in building the data, the information, the models, and the connectivity to provide this information.

Everybody should realize that because of the support of the Administration and Congress, we have within NOAA over $300 million dedicated to hurricane operations and research this year. And since 2005, we have added $40 million more in additional resources for hurricane research and operations. And in this year’s budget, there’s another $10 million requested in 2008, the budget which is in Congress at this point. And we want to point out that this investment is well placed, because it results in an average annual savings to the country of $3 billion.

One of the special-interest items that we’ve been able to install in our operations center this year is something called the HWRF, the Hurricane Weather Research and Forecast model. We have been working hard on building our – improving our ability to forecast intensity. This is the latest state-of-the-art model. It’s a Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Model. It is designed to take into account for the first time airborne Doppler radar data, which will analyze initial storm intensity and structures. It also makes use of a wide variety of observations from our satellites, data buoys, and the aircraft that you see like the one behind me. And there are two more behind these hangar doors, which I hope that you will take a look at at the conclusion of this conference.

But it takes defense in-depth like this to produce the kinds of forecasts that we’re talking about. And I would like to just mention that behind me is NOAA’s G4 high-altitude jet. This was the latest or most recent addition in modernization to our air fleet. It’s a high-altitude jet that determines the steering currents and looks at the structure of the storm and allows us to initialize and look at the steering currents for the track of the storm.

Now, behind the hangar doors, we have the WP3D, which is the workhorse of our fleet that goes into the storm and actually flies through the eye of the storm. It’s a hurricane hunter designed for research. And right behind that, we have the C-130J, which actually does the work for tracking hurricanes during the season. This is managed and run by the U.S. Air Force. This is the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, which does the routine daily tasking throughout the entire season for us, and is a partner that we could not do without.

And I want to close by mentioning that without our partners, we wouldn’t be here today. We see them on the stage here in terms of FEMA and the Air Force that are represented here today. We’re delighted to have Secretary Chertoff with us, David Paulison, the FEMA administrator, Lieutenant General John Bradley, the head of the United States Air Force Reserve and very important partner.

Let me close by again saying that this day is about preparedness. It’s about getting the word out to the American public that hurricanes are dangerous, they can be destructive, they can be lethal. It’s our job to give you warnings in order that you can be prepared. We hope that everybody will have a safe hurricane season for this year.

Now I’d like to introduce to you Dr. Gerry Bell, our Seasonal Hurricane Climate Prediction Center Lead Forecaster who will give you a little bit more on the science behind the numbers which I just provided.

Dr. Bell.

Dr. Bell: Well, thank you, Admiral. Well, as the Admiral mentioned, we’re in an active hurricane era that started in 1995. And while we can’t say for sure how long this era will last, historically other active eras have lasted 25 to 40 years. So we’re now 12 years into an active hurricane era that could last a total of 25 to 40 years historically.

For 2007, we’re predicting a high probability of an above-normal Atlantic hurricane season. And just to reiterate, we’re looking at 13 to 17 named storms, seven to 10 hurricanes, and three to five major hurricanes.

As with other active seasons, active seasons just aren’t about the numbers, but it’s about where these hurricanes form. During active seasons, you have a lot of hurricanes forming in the deep tropics, and it’s called the main hurricane development region. And many of these storms are expected to form during August, September and October. Unfortunately, these are the systems that generally track westward toward the Caribbean Sea and the United States as they strengthen, and therefore, they pose an increased threat to the United States.

Now, although NOAA doesn’t make an official hurricane landfall forecast, seasons with similar levels of activity have historically had two to four land-falling U.S. hurricanes, and, generally, two to three hurricanes in the region around the Caribbean Sea.

However, it’s important to note that it’s currently not possible to confidently predict at this time, at these extended ranges, really, the exact number or intensity of land-falling hurricanes, or whether a given locality will be impacted this season.

Because of the extensive research done by the NOAA, the National Weather Service, and their supporting institutions, the main climate patterns controlling Atlantic hurricane activity are now better understood than ever before.

There are two main climate patterns that we expect to be responsible for the above-normal season this year. The first is the ongoing conditions that we’ve seen since 1995, and we call these conditions the multidecadal signal. The second is the possible development of a La Niña episode in the tropical Pacific Ocean.

The conditions regarding the multidecadal signal, the conditions expected this year, again, are very similar to what we’ve seen since 1995, and that’s when the current active era began. Since 1995, nine of the last 12 seasons have been above normal. And of course, we all know the rate of hurricane landfalls has increased sharply.

NOAA’s extensive research shows that this increased hurricane activity is related to tropical rainfall, and Atlantic Ocean temperature patterns that, as I mentioned, historically tend to last 25 to 40 years at a time.

This multidecadal signal is very important, because it produces and accounts for the entire set of conditions that are known to produce active hurricane eras.

The second major predictor for this season is the strong likelihood of either ENSO-neutral or La Niña conditions during August to October, which of course is the peak of the season. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center at this time is currently indicating La Niña could develop within the next one to three months. Unfortunately, the combination of La Niña and an active hurricane era is known to produce very active hurricane seasons.

Now, even if La Niña doesn’t develop, the conditions associated with this ongoing active hurricane era still favor an above-normal season. And as we’ve seen since 1995, several seasons have been very active, even in the absence of La Niña.

Looking back for a moment at least year, we over-predicted the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season, and that was mainly because of a rapidly developing El Niño during August and September that subsequently shut the activity down. This year, we’re not in that situation. Instead, we’re looking at opposite conditions where we may be transitioning into a La Niña.

Very importantly, regarding last year, detailed published analysis by NOAA shows that all of the conditions associated with the current active era were still in place last year as we had expected. Therefore, last year’s activity should not be considered an indicator that this active era has ended. There is no indication that this active hurricane era has ended.

This ongoing active hurricane era means that the 2007 hurricane season will again likely be above normal. The development of La Niña, or really even a La Niña-like pattern of tropical convection increases the probability for a very active season and even more hurricane landfalls. Our predicted ranges of activity reflect this high probability of an above-normal season.

Now, given that we’re in a bit of a transition debating ENSO-neutral or La Niña at this time, we’re going to continue to monitor these evolving climate conditions, and we’re scheduled to update the outlook in early August.

And now let me introduce Bill Proenza, Director of the National Hurricane Center.

Mr. Proenza: Good morning, folks. As you’ve heard, NOAA, with the National Weather Service, is predicting a very active hurricane season. Your National Weather Service, its National Hurricane Center, its weather forecast offices across the country, the river forecast centers are all ready. Your emergency management community, your local government officials, they’re ready. With the media, the emergency management community, we have a terrific partnership to make sure that we not only keep the American people aware, but also prepared.

As it stands at this time, we have growing challenges across this nation, as far as the National Hurricane Warning program is concerned. Looking at the population growth of our nation to the vulnerable coasts, we now hear from the U.S. Census that fully 53 percent of our population resides within the first 50 miles of the coast. Couple that with the infrequency that we’ve had over certain sections of the coastline – for example, in the highly populous eastern portion of our nation – and, of course, the fact that 2006 was an inactive year, relatively so, we are always concerned that infrequency can be disarming.

So as the growing challenge is, look at the population that we have to be effectively warning and effectively getting out of harm’s way, we’re asking U.S. population in the coastline areas to join us in what has been a very, very effective partnership with emergency management, local government officials, the media, to join us in preparing yourselves, your families, your businesses, your communities, to make sure that you have planned to do what is right to assure the proper response when your area comes under a hurricane warning, because only together, working together, can we really make a difference. And we can make sure that our nation, vulnerable as it is from tropical storms and hurricanes, can be made to be resilient.

Thank you. With that, I want to introduce one of our nation’s vital partners. In our National Hurricane Warning program is the hurricane reconnaissance group of the U.S. Air Force Reserve Command that’s led by General John Bradley. The nation so appreciates General Bradley and his 20 crews that fly the Hurricane Hunters out of Keesler Air Force Base near Biloxi, Mississippi.

General Bradley.

General Bradley: Thank you, Mr. Proenza. It’s a pleasure to be here. I believe that what we do is a great example of partnership in government between the Department of Defense, the United States Air Force, and specifically the Air Force Reserve Command, and the Department of Homeland Security, National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center, and NOAA, as well as FEMA.

So we’re very proud to be a part of this and to help, in some small way, in preparing our nation for these terrible storms.

Our 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi has been doing this mission since 1946. I think the first storm that we flew into was – they say it was a dare in a bar room that generated the first flight in 1943 by the Army Air Corps into a hurricane. That’s not the way we decide to test things anymore, but it’s interesting that that’s the way it began. But we’ve been doing this now for a very long time, and I’m very proud that our airmen of the 53rd Reconnaissance Squadron do this work for our nation.

We don’t just do these storm-tracking missions during the hurricane season. We also fly winter storms as well. And when they’re not doing that, these folks flying the C-130s fly missions in support of our global war on terror. So these folks deploy to other places that are very difficult as well, but I don’t know that the flying there is any more challenging that hurricane flying.

They fly these storms at about 10,000 feet. They initially take a cut at this at a much lower altitude, but typically the missions last 10 to 12 hours. They fly in and out and fly a triangular pattern, taking different measures of barometric pressure and other things. They drop a device called a dropson to measure pressures and winds and so forth.

This year and next year, we are adding a very nice new piece of equipment to our aircraft that will help us more accurately determine the surface winds at all times as the storm is out over the water.

So we hope that the little bit that we do in flying through these storms gives us a better predictor. They say maybe it’s a 25 to 30 percent more accurate reading of the intensity of the storm and where it might hit because of flying through these storms.

I’m proud of these folks that do this. I hope you’ll take the opportunity after this conference to go meet our crew and see the airplanes, see the equipment that we use as we try to tell the American people what we do to prepare our nation for these storms.

Again, the Air Force Reserve Command and our Air Force is very proud to be in this partnership, to help our nation prepare for these what can be disastrous consequences. And now as we transition into the preparedness, we are honored to have the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security with us, as well as the Director of FEMA. So our next speaker I’m proud to introduce is Secretary Michael Chertoff.

Secretary Chertoff: Thank you, General, for the introduction, and thank you, everybody else, for your comments.

I’m going to be very brief. I just want to make three points. Whatever hurricane season may bring, we obviously hope for the best but we prepare for the worst. And I think that means three things. First of all, speaking for the Department of Homeland Security, represented also here by Administrator Dave Paulison of FEMA and by the Coast Guard, which is represented by the helicopter, all of us have worked very hard over the last year with state and local government, who are the first responders, to carefully review emergency planning and evacuation planning so that everybody is prepared for this year’s hurricane season.

And it’s important to emphasize that although we typically think of hurricanes as hitting the Gulf area or the area of Florida and the Carolinas, it is quite possible to have a hurricane further north in areas which are less accustomed to dealing with hurricanes. And it’s been important to emphasize to state and local officials there that they also have to make sure that their emergency and evacuation plans are dusted off and exercised.

Second, we are coming into this hurricane season with a set of tools that we’ve never had before. We’ve got much more communications equipment, including interoperable equipment that is capable of being put on-site very quickly, including real-time video to give us eyes on the actual situation when the storm hits.

FEMA has worked very hard to get increased visibility into the movement of goods and supplies as we move forward, to see how we respond to a hurricane if it hits, and then we’ve built a series of business processes and tools which will enable us to enroll people if they’re suffering upheaval because of the hurricane, will let us get assistance to them more promptly, will guard more securely against the possibility of fraud and abuse. And Administrator Paulison will talk about these a little bit more when he comes up here.

There’s one third and most important piece of the puzzle, and that is individual preparedness. The fact is that no matter how good your local responders are, your state responders or your federal responders, they will not be there instantly at the time a hurricane arrives.

It is the preparation of individuals, families and businesses that makes the difference between survival and disaster when a hurricane hits. That means preparing yourself with the necessary tools, preparing yourself with food and water to sustain you for up to 72 hours, having a plan about what you do, and, most important, listening to the guidance of your local officials about when to get out in advance of a storm. A storm is no place to be a hero. And the fact that somebody rides out a storm and puts themselves in peril is not only an endangerment of their own lives, but actually endangers the responders who have to get in there and do the rescues.

So my view is, it’s kind of a civic responsibility for everybody who’s in the zone of danger to take the steps necessary and to listen to the instructions given so that we can allow our responders to attend to those people who can’t help themselves.

Finally, let me echo something that Bill Proenza said – and I’m going to be as blunt as possible: Last year was an unexpectedly easy season; there’s no guarantee that this season is going to be anything less than very tough. Complacency and disarming yourself are the biggest threats that people face, in terms of getting themselves prepared. It is a big mistake to count on being lucky. You’re much better off preparing yourself for the worst, and then if you get lucky, that’s a bonus.

So I think we’re all going to be up there urging that message of fight complacency and be serious about this before the hurricane season actually starts to hit in June.

I’m going to now introduce Dave Paulison, our Administrator of FEMA, who has been at my side for the last couple of years dealing with hurricanes and who brings a lot of personal experience, going back to his days being fire chief in Dade County to this hurricane challenge.

Dave.

Administrator Paulison: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I think this is like a congressional hearing. Everything that needs to be said has been said, just everybody hasn’t said it yet. But I do want to talk about a couple of things. One, we have been working very hard, very closely with the Secretary to make sure that the federal government is going to be ready – not just FEMA, but the entire federal family – developing those partnerships, putting those pre-scripted mission assignments in place, putting contracts in place, working with the states along the Gulf Coast, up the Atlantic Coast, with Puerto Rice and the Virgin Islands, to do those gap analyses to see where the issues are, where those gaps that we can help them fill so we can tailor our response.

But what really keeps me awake at night, what really keeps me awake at night, is something the Secretary touched on, and that’s about personal preparedness. I spent this last weekend, after I flew down to Florida Friday night, to start getting my home ready – making sure my shutters worked, opening and closing all of them, making sure my generator ran, and making sure we have the things that we need to get through hurricane season.

If we are going to survive these storms, if we’re going to get into the recovery process much more smoothly that we have in the past, it takes all of us to be ready. It takes the federal government to be ready, and that’s our responsibility to make sure that happens; the state governments have to be ready; the local governments have to be ready to respond. But so does the local community, the local citizens have to be ready to respond and prepare themselves for these storms – making sure they have a plan, like you heard the Secretary say, about an evacuation. If you’re in an evacuation zone, if you’re going to ride out a storm, make sure you have your three-day supply of food, water, flashlight, batteries, medicines, taken care of your pets, making sure you have supplies for your children, all of those types of things you’re going to have to survive for the three or four days before help can truly arrive. That, I think, is the most important thing.

If we all do our part, if all of us –the federal government, the state and local community, and us as individuals – we can’t stop the storm from coming, and we can’t necessarily stop the damage, but we can also – together, we can get through this and survive much, much better than we have in the past.

So that’s my concern. My concern is the complacency that we’ve seen in the past, the complacency we saw, quite frankly, year before last with Hurricane Wilma in my hometown of Florida, where we had tens of thousands of people lined up for food and water and ice when they should have been able to take care of themselves. We cannot tolerate that anymore.

So I would ask emergency managers out there listening, the media around in this room, that’s the message we have to get across. We have predicted a very heavy hurricane season. We need to make sure that those who are in those hurricane zones have prepared themselves for this upcoming season.

And thank you very much. We can take a few questions now.

Mr. Franklin: Thank you, Director Paulison. When I recognize you, we have time for just a few questions. Please state your name and affiliation and to whom you’re addressing your question. Yes, sir.

Question: A question for Secretary Chertoff. Hurricanes Rita and Katrina in ‘05 took out 100 percent of Gulf Coast oil production, 90 percent of gas production, and shut down, what was it, seven refineries in the Gulf Coast region. Are you assured by those various industries that they have – are better able to survive a hurricane strike of that magnitude now than they were then?

Secretary Chertoff: Well, the first thing is, of course, there’s only so much you can do to resist a hurricane. I know that the various companies involved have learned lessons in taking steps based upon the experiences they had in the Gulf storms of 2005 to build greater resiliency. But I also want to be up front in recognizing that wind and water can do an awful lot of damage, and nobody is invulnerable to them.

One issue we have asked, we asked last year and we’re asking again this year for all of the energy companies is to make sure that their individual gas stations and their franchises have generators available. One of the big lessons we learned in 2005 is, if you don’t have generators to get the pumps working, people can’t get to work, they can’t get food, they can’t get water. Energy is the cornerstone of recovery and resilience.

And so, as we did last year, we’re going to ask them to make sure those generators are down there ready to go, both to help people get the gas they need to evacuate, but also to help get started up again after a storm.

Question: Thank you. This is for Secretary Chertoff. What have you learned since your personal failure in your response to Hurricane Katrina?

Secretary Chertoff: One thing I’ve learned is that some reporters ask loaded questions. I’ll tell you what I’ve learned. I’ve learned that the key to any successful response is preparedness. No matter how good somebody is, if you walk into an emergency, you’re not going to be able to improvise a solution. That means the planning to deal with issues has to begin years in advance. And one of the things we’ve all learned from 2005 is how to do that planning. That’s why we have the capabilities and the tools this year that we didn’t have in 2005, and that’s why we have plans with the Department of Defense this year that we didn’t have in 2005, and frankly, that we didn’t have in the 1990s or 1980s either. And that’s why we’ve been working with state and local authorities to make sure they’ve done their planning properly because, again, the first responders have traditionally been and will always be state and local authorities. They’re the ones who know the people, they know the landscape, they’re going to be close to the storm, and therefore they have to get their plans in order and synchronize with ours in order to be able to react properly.

So you’ve got the benefit this year of two years of investment of substantial resources, an administrator of FEMA who has real expertise, a great partnership with the Department of Defense and the Department of Commerce, and a lot of planning with state and local authorities, many of whom I’ve spoken to personally and looked in the eye to make sure that they have fully stepped to what they need to do.

Question: This is a question first for the Admiral, and then for Mr. Proenza. Admiral, a report by NOAA recently came out and said that seven years after the first operational use of ocean surface vector winds, the nation – that means NOAA – still doesn’t have a plan to operationally measure these winds after the QuikSCAT satellite is gone. What have you been doing for seven years? You’ve been there for five. Then the other question for Mr. Proenza is, what does this lack of data, if we were to lose QuikSCAT, mean for your forecasters?

Admiral Lautenbacher: There has been a plan, and the plan has been in place for a long time. We have two experimental satellites. One is QuikSCAT, and one is the Coriolis WindSat, which was launched not that long ago and will last longer than the scatterometer.

We have been learning, in the last couple of years, to use vector windfield data in our models, and it’s proven to be very important. Our original plan was to use the conical microwave imaging scanner to provide the vector windfield data. We are relooking at that, based on the recommendations of Mr. Proenza at this point, and I’ve asked my team to go back and review it again, along with our satellite experts, to see what would be practical, in terms of providing for continuity of scatterometry data versus switching to the Conical Microwave Imaging Sounder. So that’s the situation we have at this point. Thank you.

Mr. Proenza: The satellite known as QuikSCAT provides us operationally and has been used operationally since 2000, especially for our hurricane program. As it stands, it is a broad swath of data that comes across to us, that shows the envelope in which a storm may be existing; that indicates to us not only wind speed, but also wind direction. It gives us an estimate of the size of the tropical storm winds and the hurricane winds. It’s a vital piece of data to us in our operational National Hurricane Warning program, as it is for the high seas forecasting for not only the nation, but it is a service that’s used over 90 percent of the global oceans.

We have had several discussions along the lines of how we can increase the priority for a QuikSCAT replacement. I am encouraged in those conversations that we have had, and discussions we have had, that the nation will be moving ahead very constructively in coming up with a design next-generation QuikSCAT to replace the current, which is still operational QuikSCAT that we have at this time.

Question: With another active hurricane season – this is for Mr. Paulison or Mr. Chertoff – some governors are, I’m sure, going to express their concerns again that there may not be enough National Guardsmen at home to take care of it. Is this a concern for NOAA – for FEMA or the Department of Homeland Security? And also, what are the numbers – what are the numbers of Guardsmen who are going to be here and available this year, as opposed to 2005 and 2004, the other active hurricane seasons?

Administrator Paulison: It’s an issue we’ve talked about quite a while with the adjunct generals – when I was in Kansas, visiting there with the adjunct general, making comments about how he was at 50 percent of his authorized force strength. But 50 percent is a wartime strength issue, and the fact that the equipment that he had on the ground for responding to natural disasters was significant. But I also told him how we respond in this country, using what we call the Emergency Management Assistance Compact system, where we bring in not only National Guard, but resources from all the other states – all 50 states in this country are part of that system, where we share resources with one state to another.

If one state has a disaster or some type of catastrophe it has to deal with, it puts out through this EMAC system the equipment that it needs, and then it starts flowing from the other states. During Hurricane Katrina, we actually had National Guards from all 50 states into that state to help them out with those disasters. On top of that, we can bring the Army Corps of Engineers in – it has heavy equipment. We have contracts in place already to bring those types of equipment in. So I’m very comfortable that regardless of what happens, particularly a hurricane, we can flow equipment and supplies and staffing into a particular state to cover those areas.

Question: (Inaudible.)

Administrator Paulison: I couldn’t answer that. I can tell you, my own home state of Florida, Craig Fugate announced – said at the hurricane conference that he has more people available to him this year than he had in the past. That’s the only state that I’m aware of.

Question: A question for Admiral Lautenbacher. Admiral, sir, last week your Hurricane Center Director, Mr. Proenza, criticized NOAA for spending millions on public relations, he said at the expense of technologies that he needed, and that it also devalued brands the public trusts, like the National Hurricane Center and the National Weather Service. By virtue of having this event here this year in Washington, rather than in a hurricane-prone area like Miami in the past, is this evidence of that? And would you respond to that criticism?

Admiral Lautenbacher: Clearly not evidence of that. This is – we move the hurricane conference around year to year in various places. We believe that it’s important to bring it to Washington, to the attention of people in Washington who have to deal with these issues. So this is part of trying to improve our outreach.

Now, in terms of the money being spent, you have to remember Mr. Proenza just took over as the head of the Hurricane Center, and he is known for being a very strong and forceful advocate for his programs. And that’s one reason why we love him. So we are continuing to work with Bill, who did not have a chance to build his budget for what he’s working on today. And I’ve asked the Weather Service to ensure that he has what he needs to provide everything that we need to do what’s responsible during this hurricane season.

Now, in terms of the outreach program that we have, in my view – and we may have a little disagreement here – I view we spend pathetically little on our outreach program. No matter what size your organization is, whether it’s huge or small, if you’re not spending some money on trying to connect with the public, on trying to explain why it’s important to pay attention to the information that we have, a perfect forecast provides no information at all.

So we have a program each year where we have outreach items, and we look at ways to reach the public. This year’s was based on the fact that the first part of NOAA began in 1807, providing benefit for the economy and saving lives for the American public 200 years ago, and that’s been built up over those years. We’re not spending any more money than we normally spend for these outreach-type items. And again, I defend that as an essential part of our organization, to provide warnings to the public. Thank you.

Question: This is a question for Gerry Bell. What causes these sudden waxing and waning of the El Niño? And you often hear about dust in the Sahara coming over and having an effect on hurricanes. Could you talk a little bit about those things?

Dr. Bell: Regarding El Niño and La Niña, we call it the El Niño-La Niña cycle. This is a naturally occurring climate phenomenon linked to changes in tropical Pacific Ocean temperatures. El Niño refers to the situation when the waters are warmer than normal, and La Niña refers to the situation when the waters are cooler than normal. It’s a naturally occurring climate cycle that can strongly affect not only hurricanes, but as we know, our winter weather patterns and jet streams and storm tracks, and so on.

They really vary quite a bit in how they develop. Sometimes, as we saw last year, El Niño can develop very quickly. Other times an El Niño or La Niña similarly will develop over many, many months, and our computer models will be able to handle that better. So what we’re understanding now is there are several – apparently several different mechanisms by which one of these events can form. And we’re still trying to understand what those are to then get them in our ENSO prediction models so that we can better predict the onset, and also the decay, of these systems.

The second question was regarding African dust. That’s a very important issue, and NOAA is heavily involved in that. Last year, with the AMAC project – it was an African Meteorology and Climate project – we had several – we were heavily involved in looking at things like African dust.

Its impact on last year is still a bit uncertain. I don’t think we have a really good handle on that. It looks like El Niño, and also just mid-latitude weather patterns that help to redirect the hurricanes way out to sea, were the main factors for the reduced activity and the lack of hurricane landfalls last year.

Question: Does the dust promote hurricane development or –

Dr. Bell: It’s not entirely clear what the role of the dust is, and I’m definitely not an expert in this area. Some people argue that it affects the radiation balances and can, therefore, affect the atmospheric stability. Other people argue, say, well, the dust is really simply a manifestation of extremely dry air coming off the Sahara. But we see African dust outbreaks a lot and it’s not clear if it actually affects the seasonal activity, or not.

There are other major climate factors that we use in the forecast that really account for much of the year-to-year and decade-to-decade variability that we see. But it’s an important issue and a lot of work is being done, and will continue to be done on the dust issue.

Mr. Franklin: Thank you very much. That’s all we have time for today. I invite you to tour the aircraft that are out here.

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