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CNN Live Today

Storm Experts Backpedaling on Forecast

Aired August 08, 2002 - 11:07   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Bertha is not done yet. The remnants of the storm blew back into the Gulf of Mexico, and reformed today as a tropical depression. Bertha came ashore near New Orleans Monday, drenching the Gulf Coast. Some spots got seven inches of rain, and it caused some localized flooding.

Right now, Bertha is about 90 miles south of Galveston, Texas. Winds are running about 30 miles an hour. The storm is expected to bring heavy squalls to the Texas coast, and maybe some relief from near 100-degree temperatures that they've been living through down there.

Now, right smack dab in the middle of hurricane season, storm experts are backpedaling on their forecast. Max Mayfield is director of the National Hurricane Center. He joins us from Miami this morning, I guess, to do a little bit of Monday morning quarterbacking on this.

Good morning. How are you doing, Max?

MAX MAYFIELD, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: Fine, Leon.

HARRIS: Let's first talk about Bertha. What do you expect to happen with Bertha now?

MAYFIELD: Just a tropical depression. They actually could use rain there in the southern extreme of Texas, so it should continue towards the lower Texas coast, probably move in near the Corpus Christie area, and bring some rainfall here in the next day or so and keep move westward into northern Mexico.

HARRIS: Forecasting on that one, let's talk about the forecast at the Hurricane Center came up with at the beginning of the year. I think we have graphic, not sure if you can see this right here. Coming into this 2002 hurricane season, the initial prediction was for 9-13 tropical tomorrows, 6-8 hurricanes and 2-3 major hurricanes, but now, from what we're hearing the forecast that you all are working on now is actually changing these numbers downward dramatically.

MAYFIELD: Well, I don't know how dramatic it is, but we are updating it, like we have done the last few years here in the first of August, and if you look at the monitor behind me, I can show you why.

HARRIS: OK. MAYFIELD: We are going to look at an animation of the sea surface temperature anomalies in the central and eastern Pacific. The yellows and greens here represent warmer-than-normal temperatures. If you look at this area right here, you will see that even in the last couple of weeks here this has been warming. So we are calling this a weak to moderate El Nino that usually manifests itself by giving us strong upper-level westerly flow in portions of the Caribbean and Atlantic. If you look at the satellite loop here, you will see the very strong westerly winds. That usually is not conducive to hurricane development.

So for us, that's good news. That may cut down on the number of storms and hurricanes. But the message from the National Hurricane Center, it still needs to be very, very clear. It's not all about numbers. We urge everyone to be prepared, no matter what.

HARRIS: We get you on that. Let's put up another graphic we have here about the new revised predictions. Here we go. This is the current prediction now, 7-10 tropical storms. 4-6 hurricanes 1-3 major hurricanes. Are you saying then that this little minor El Nino effect that you see here in the other hemisphere, you think that, basically, is going to keep these numbers down?

MAYFIELD: That's correct. That's one of the climate factors that we're looking at, and the fact that it has gotten warmer out there, it's definitely stronger now than it was back in May when we had the first forecast. We want to give the best forecast we can, so it makes good sense to decrease those numbers somewhat.

But again, a word of caution, and 1992 is the perfect example. That was a year with below-normal numbers. In fact, we only had four hurricanes that year, but we had Hurricane Andrew, which did over $25 billion worth of damage.

HARRIS: That's right. Let me ask you this, a lot looking at the storms coming in and offering some kind of drought relief. Is that going to happen at all down the road this summer or this fall?

MAYFIELD: We really don't have enough scale to show where the hurricanes and storm make landfall, so I can't make any promises there. What I can say is that in the El Nino years, we tend to have more high-latitude systems, and in fact, Arthur, formed off the coast of Carolinas, Bertha, the northern gulf of Mexico, and Chris Cobalt (ph), off the Atlanta coast in South Carolina. That is a tendency we see in these El Nino years, but where they make landfall, I can't tell you.

HARRIS: All right, Max Mayfield, we sure do appreciate it. I bet the insurance companies are hoping that your numbers are right, or maybe even lower than that.

MAYFIELD: So am I, Leon. Thank you.

HARRIS: Take care, Max.

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