Another hurricane forecast: where will they go?

I’ve already blogged about Dale Link’s hurricane predictions: instead of predicting HOW MANY hurricanes will hit a given season, Dale predicts the most likely landfalls. He claims that hurricane-force storms will pass through his forecast zones a little over half the time. However, last year didn’t work out (thank God) as planned. Here is Dale’s forecast for 2022, with the red areas indicating different areas where a fairly good chance of a hurricane should be expected:

Zone 4 along the south Atlantic coast has been a hit, but most of these zones were free of hurricanes last season. South Florida was not a forecast zone, but Hurricane Yan devastated it from the west side, and then the weak Hurricane Nicole hit the east coast of Florida. Fiona crashed into Canada, also unexpectedly:

Dale’s methodology is to look at the history of hurricanes, the idea that the tracks of the last couple of years are likely to be repeated. So I asked about the 2022 bust and he replied:

Yes, I used the wrong data to calculate Zone 3, this zone was supposed to cover the entire west coast of Florida. I will edit this change and show it in my 2022 forecast at the end of the year. In addition, I will add another Zone that covers western Cuba and eastern Yucatan… Nicole is not predictable by my methods, this is considered a severe tropical storm (2 mph above tropical storm strength) – a weak short-term hurricane, I will use Nicole for zone prediction for eastern Florida in 2024. For zones 1, 2, and 5, on average, only 50% of the zones in the US have hurricanes. I’m surprised there wasn’t a storm in Area 5. But I’m still a work in progress, determining which storms create zones and which storms are created by past storms is my biggest challenge. In any case, I will send you my revised forecasts for 2022 and 2023, hopefully by the first of this year. Dol

Even the more traditional forecasts from various universities and meteorological groups are flawed – most of them failed last year to take into account the quiet July-August we had thanks to the Sahara dust, and did not predict the heat in Europe, which dried up. Atlantic, so the season was largely overrated. All we can do is see where the hurricane forecast is wrong and work on improving the methodology. That’s what science is!

With that in mind, Dale Link posted his hurricane forecast for 2023, and at least for the Gulf Coast, let’s hope he’s right. It also shows past hurricanes used for its predictions:

While this forecast calls for a quiet season in Texas, it is clear that this is not a guarantee. You can view Dale’s forecasts around the world and learn more about his methodology. Right here.

Thanks for the quick responses Dale and good luck to all of us as we head into the 2023 hurricane season!

Frank

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