Hurricane forecast: Another active season

As St. Mary Parish continues to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Francine, the first major prediction of the year calls for another season with more tropical weather than usual.
The hurricane forecasters at Colorado State University, following a 20-year tradition launched by the late Dr. William Gray, say they’re expecting 17 named storms in the Atlantic-Gulf season that runs June 1-Nov. 30. The 30-year average is 14.4.
Among those storms:
•Nine will reach hurricane strength with sustained winds of at least 74 mph.
•Four will reach major hurricane status with Category 3 or greater winds of at least 111 mph. The 30-year average is 3.2.
•There will be 85 days with active named storms, and nine major hurricane days.
The forecasters give the Gulf Coast between the Florida Panhandle and Brownsville, Texas, a 33% chance of seeing a major hurricane landfall.
The Colorado State analysis blames the probability of increased tropical activity on warmer than average Atlantic water temperatures — although not as warm as last year’s — and the south Pacific weather pattern known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation.
The oscillation is between the El Niño pattern, which creates winds that tend to hinder hurricane development, and La Niña, which has the opposite effect.
“A warmer-than-normal Atlantic combined with ENSO neutral (or La Niña) conditions typically favors an active Atlantic hurricane season via dynamic and thermodynamic conditions that are conducive to developing hurricanes (e.g., low vertical wind shear, increased upper ocean heat content),” write the Colorado State researchers.
Last year’s prediction of an active season proved to be accurate. The 2024 hurricane season had 18 named storms, 11 hurricanes and five major hurricanes.
St. Mary got its hardest hurricane hit since Andrew in 1992 when Hurricane Francine made landfall near the city in Terrebonne Parish on Sept. 11.
Francine came ashore as a Category 2 hurricane with 100 mph wind. Although the storm surge proved to be insignificant, Francine dumped an official total of about 10 inches of rain on Morgan City, exposing flood control pump inadequacies that had been identified but not solved.
More than 300 Morgan City homes sustained water damage from a storm that, overall, caused about $1.5 billion in damage. Ochsner St. Mary was closed to inpatient admissions until the end of the month because of water infiltration. Voters in Hospital Service District No. 2 passed a property tax in December to help pay for repairs.
And St. Mary was far from the hardest hit region in 2024.
Hurricane Helene in late September killed 250 people in seven mostly southeastern states and caused damage estimated at nearly $80 billion.
In early October, Hurricane Milton killed 42 people in Florida and caused $34 billion in property damage.