Quote:
Originally posted by alexanderao
It's a boring thing.
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I've followed the weather since age 3 (1977) and tracked hurricanes since Hurricane Gilbert in September 1988 (age 14). Emily was supposed to affect us here in Tampa Bay, and I was strongly disappointed nothing came of it. There looked like there would be a brief window for redevelopment after the center emerged off of Cuba as wind sheer was expected to subside, but that never happened.
The reason why the Atlantic is so boring and the Pacific is so active has everything to do with this unusually strong El Niņo. This Eastern Pacific phenomen has caused sheer to tear any system apart that approaches North America. This is why Tampa had 22" of rain in 22 days, because a trough that could've normally developed into a storm and moved away got stuck here for three weeks, causing flooding problems we're still dealing with every time it rains.
Of course, the Pacific is much more active because the water is so much warmer than normal. The water temperature off of San Diego is close to 80 degrees. Generally San Diego is the one place in California with semi-tolerable water temperatures up to around 72, but 80 is almost like the Gulf. Water around the Hawaiian Islands is unusually warm too, which has made them susceptible to more tropical systems than usual.
I'm wondering if a tropical storm might hit So Cal, as these are the conditions where it could happen. They thought a hurricane might hit there in 1997, during the last strong El Niņo, but a trough moved in and blocked the storm. San Diego was hit by a hurricane in 1851, and The Weather Channel actually places the city among the Top Five metropolitan areas most overdue for a hurricane. Tampa Bay is in the Top Five too. We've had a lot of very close calls, but no direct landfalls since 1921.
