Diminishing El Nino could mean tougher hurricane season in 2003

MIAMI -- With only four hurricanes, the Atlantic storm season that ends today was the calmest in five years, and forecasters were thanking the climate phenomenon known as El Nino.

Don't expect such help next year, though: Storm expert William Gray said El Nino will probably be gone before the new season begins July 1, and he echoed the concerns of other forecasters over the potential for a killer storm.

"It's quite ominous because there's been such a buildup of people along the Southeast coast," said Gray, from Colorado State University.

In all, the season produced a dozen tropical storms, two more than average. The four hurricanes -- Gustav, Isidore, Kyle and Lili -- were two less than average, and all developed in less than a month, between Sept. 8 and Oct. 4.

Eight of the 12 cyclones came in September, setting a monthly record, said Ed Rappaport, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

El Nino also suppressed hurricane activity in 1997, but federal forecasters hadn't expected it to be strong enough to have an impact this year.

Warm sea surface

El Nino is characterized by an abnormally warm sea surface in the central equatorial Pacific Ocean. This results in increased evaporation and rising air currents that can affect the winds overhead that steer the movement of weather.

Despite El Nino, northern tropical storms were plentiful.

Six came ashore in the United States.

The year's deadliest and most powerful storm, however, came ashore in Louisiana, the first hurricane to make landfall in the United States in three years.

Lili struck on Oct. 2 as a Category 2 storm with top sustained winds of 110 mph after it had already buried a mother and her three children in a mudslide in St. Vincent in the eastern Caribbean. The storm took four more lives in Jamaica.

A swing north across the Gulf of Mexico saw Lili grow, with winds reaching 145 mph, but it weakened significantly before hitting Louisiana -- surprising weather experts.

"This is the most recent example of problems we have in forecasting tropical intensification changes or weakening," Rappaport said.

Planning his prediction

Gray will issue his first hurricane forecast for 2003 next Friday, and he's expecting storm activity to kick up again.

"We think we'll be back in the era of six of the last eight years," he said. "We think we're in an upswing."