Kyle causes little damage; Laura forms

Hurricane Kyle caused a rainy and blustery night, but apparently “no major problems,” in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The brunt of the storm, such as it was, hit southwestern Nova Scotia, knocking “lots of trees down, power lines down” but otherwise causing little damage. At the storm’s height, some 40,000 customers lost electricity; that number is already down to 14,000. Alan Sullivan writes: “Nova Scotia is a stormy place, and this was nothing out of the ordinary. It is quite common for this outstretched piece of land to catch a dying tropical cyclone, but the winter storms are worse.”

[UPDATE: In a hot-off-the-presses post, Dr. Jeff Masters suggests that Kyle probably wasn’t a hurricane at landfall: “Kyle did generate one hurricane force wind gust — 77 mph at Baccaro Point, on the extreme southernmost point of Nova Scotia — but it is questionable whether it really was a hurricane over Nova Scotia. Kyle weakened dramatically right at landfall. … Even though Yarmouth was on the strong (right) side of Kyle where the highest winds should have been, the airport measured top winds of only 30 mph, gusting to 50 mph. Not even minor damage was reported there, according to news reports.”]

Meanwhile, the National Hurricane Center has initiated advisories on Subtropical Storm Laura, out in the middle of nowhere in the North Atlantic. This is a “fish” storm, a threat only to shipping interests, so there’s not much to say, aside from debating whether its designation constitutes “count-padding.” Unsurprisingly, Sullivan says yes: “This is the most dubious call of the year for NHC, perhaps trying to salvage the broken forecast of a much more active season.” Just as unsurprisingly, I’m skeptical of that conclusion.

If the NHC wanted to pad the storm count, surely they would have given a name to the subtropical-ish system that made landfall in North Carolina a few days ago, about which Sullivan himself wrote: “I won’t grumble if NHC designates this hybrid cyclone.” If the NHC had done that, “Laura” would be “Marco” today. But the NHC didn’t do that, which, it seems to me, deflates the conspiracy theory a bit. Laura may be “marginal,” but surely reasonable people can disagree on such subjective close calls, particularly when there is now monolithic pattern of always erring in one particular direction.

In any case, for what it’s worth — and I’m on record, repeatedly, as stating that seasonal hurricane forecasts are overhyped and overrated — the consensus was that we’d have between 11 and 16 named storms, between 6 and 9 hurricanes, and between 2 and 5 major hurricanes. Right now, with two months left in the season, we’re sitting at 12, 6 and 3. So, if the season ended today (and it does appear to be winding down, climatology notwithstanding), we’d be just at the low end of the predictions, and just above the long-term climatological averages (9.6, 5.9 and 2.3).

Also, Dr. William Gray — the dean of seasonal hurricane forecasting, and, incidentally, a global warming skeptic — predicted an ACE of 150; we’re sitting at 120 (the average is 102). All things considered, I’d say it’s at least premature, and arguably just downright erroneous, to talk about “broken forecast[s] of a much more active season.” Marginally erroneous forecasts of a slightly more active season, maybe.

P.S. As an aside, I don’t think the “another weak season!” meme is going to get much traction, after a year in which we’ve seen, according to Wikipedia, 28 landfalls, 852 deaths (and counting), more than $50 billion of damage, and a string of 7 consecutive named storms hitting the U.S. mainland (Cristobal, Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike). Of course, those aren’t really legitimate measures of seasonal activity, meteorologically speaking. But as a practical matter, nobody’s going to buy the “weak season” argument in 2008. I’d be better, I think, for the skeptics to stick with playing defense against the “it’s all caused by global warming” meme, and not try to advance the competing, and equally misleading, “it was a weak season, which disproves global warming” meme.