Recent historical Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclone inactivity is compared with the strikingly large observed variability during the past three decades. Yearly totals of Northern Hemisphere ACE are highly correlated with boreal spring sea-surface temperatures in the North Pacific Ocean and are representative of an evolving dual-gyre, trans-hemispheric correlation pattern throughout the calendar year. The offsetting nature of EPAC and NATL basin integrated energy and the strong dependence of combined Pacific TC activity upon ENSO suggest a hypothesis that overall Northern Hemisphere TC behavior is largely modulated by global-scale, non-local climate variability.

“…Read knows this year could be very different, and noted Colorado State forecaster William Gray is considering raising his predictions when he releases his new forecast April 9th.

In his last outlook, Gray called for 13 named storms but says cool waters in the Pacific, called La Nina, can enhance hurricane conditions and points out warm waters off of Africa are similar to what they were before the historic 2005 season…”

See the Australian Govt Met Bureau’s “ENSO Wrap-Up” at LINK and note that most of the models suggest a continuation of La Nina conditions until probably the beginning of NH summer.

It is likely therefore that the Western Pacific basin will be at most an average year in terms of ACE with the Eastern Pacific continuing its dormancy. Bill Gray’s seasonal forecast will be coming out next week, and I am willing to bet all of my carbon credits that the Atlantic should be active.