Early forecast: Another active hurricane season

The first major hurricane forecast of the year is out, and it looks familiar.
Meteorologists at Colorado State are predicting a more active than usual hurricane season in 2022, according to the long-range forecast released April 7. That would make this year the sixth straight when the Atlantic Basin, including the Gulf Coast, experiences more than the usual number of named storms.
The forecast is for:
—19 named storms, compared to a 1991-2021 average of 14.4.
—90 days with a named storm, compared to the average of 69.4.
—9 hurricanes, compared to the average of 7.2.
—35 days with a hurricane, compared to 27.
—4 major hurricanes, compared to 3.2.
—9 days with a major hurricane, compared to 7.4.
A major hurricane is defined as one with winds of at least Category 3 strength, or at least 111 mph.
Colorado State’s Tropical Weather and Climate Research program, which began to be closely watched under the leadership of the late Dr. Bill Gray, claims “modest success” in its long-term forecast. Updated forecasts will be issued closer to the beginning of the June 1-Nov. 30 hurricane season.
During the last few years of sometimes frantic tropical weather, St. Mary hasn’t experienced a direct hit. But it has felt many effects just the same.
Last year’s Hurricane Ida threatened the St. Mary-Iberia coast with Category 4 winds of at least 130 mph before a last-minute eastward jog in its track led to a landfall near Port Fourchon. Ida, tied with 2020’s Laura as the second-most damaging hurricane to hit Louisiana, caused only minor damage in St. Mary.
But St. Mary lived with traffic tie-ups, gas station lines and some grocery shortages as people came here from hard-hit areas to the east for supplies.
The 2020 hurricanes that hit Louisiana, including the monstrously strong Hurricane Laura’s devastation in the Lake Charles area, caused some power outages here.
St. Mary Parish Levee District officials hustled to install sheet pilings in the still-incomplete Bayou Teche Flood Control Structure to block storm surge flooding from coming into the Teche through the Charenton Canal.
In July 2019, Hurricane Barry made landfall near Pecan Island as a Category 1 hurricane. St. Mary people endured a long, hot weekend without power. The storm surge pushed the Atchafalaya River at Morgan City briefly to 10.06 feet, the third-highest stage on record.
Barry was also unusual in that it began as a storm system near the Missouri-Kansas border that drifted into the Gulf of Mexico and intensified.
The key factor in this year’s active hurricane season forecast is the El Niño-La Niña cycle.
El Niño is a pattern of higher-than-usual water temperatures in the southern Pacific Ocean. El Niño is associated with wind patterns that tend to inhibit hurricane development.
The flip side is La Niña, a time of cooler water temperatures that result in more active hurricane conditions in the Atlantic.
“Current weak La Niña conditions look fairly likely to transition to neutral [pattern] by this summer/fall, but the odds of a significant El Niño seem unlikely,” according to the Colorado State forecast.
“As is the case with all hurricane seasons, coastal residents are reminded that it only takes one hurricane making landfall to make it an active season for them. They should prepare the same for every season, regardless of how much activity is predicted.”