No correlation between dry mays and SFL hurricane landfalls.
Posted by
Adrian on 6/2/2011, 12:17 am
Basically, there's no significant scientific correlation between a dry May and an active Florida hurricane season. Florida's risk is fairly high every year, regardless of the start of the rainy season, and the weather patterns that cause dryness in May don't necessary translate to or cause another type of weather pattern later in the season that could lead to a South Florida hurricane landfall. In other words, the pattern in late May doesn't usually stick around the entire hurricane season. Even it did, a tropical system would have to form in just the right place and right time to be affected by that weather pattern and affect South Florida. These things are dictated by weather patterns which can only be reasonably predicted 7 to 14 days out.
Dry Mays can also be caused by NW flow around the east side of a high over the Gulf and SE U.S, so it's not always the subtropical ridge from the Atlantic that gives us dry weather in May. The NWS office in miami did a correlation study a few years back and found no strong scientific correlation between a dry May and a hurricane strike in South Florida. We're talking about two different scales, large scale weather systems and a sub-large scale system like a tropical cyclone embedded within the large scale. There are too many factors involved in the development area, timing and track of a tropical system that can't be correlated 3-4 months in advance. Everything could set up for a potential Florida impact on the large scale, but if a storm moves too far south, it stays in the Caribbean, or if the ridge weakens temporarily, it misses us by 200 miles to the north. That's why the correlations are very weak, at best, which implies a lack of scientific support for something as specific as a South Florida landfall.
Adrian |
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OK... Let's talk Dry May Theory -
BobbiStorm,
6/1/2011, 9:52 pm Post A Reply
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