Weather by the Numbers
By The Numbers: August 19, 2011
Posted by: Neapolitan, 19 08, 2011 23:19 GMT +15
  • With today's designation of TS Harvey, the 2011 North Atlantic Hurricane Season is off to a wild (in terms of number of storms) yet mild (in terms of Accumulated Cyclone Energy, or ACE). Climatologically-speaking--that is, from 1966 through 2009--we can expect the eighth named storm of the season on September 24. 2011 is, thus, five weeks ahead of schedule. However, also climatologically-speaking, the first hurricane from the aforementioned 1966-2009 period has appeared on August 10, so 2011 is a week and a half behind. As I said, both wild and mild.

    Storm Stairstep


  • 2005--the busiest hurricane season ever--saw the tenth storm of that season, Jose, named on August 22nd. As I write this on August 19th, there are two possible Jose candidates; if either is named in the next three days, 2011 will (obviously) be tied with 2005 in terms of named storms. However, all of 2011's storms to-date have been relative weaklings--and that takes us to my next point:


  • In 2005, the first seven named storms--Arlene through Irene--accumulated 61.85 ACE units, for a per-storm average of 8.78. By comparison, the first seven storms this year have averaged 1.79 ACE units, for a total of 12.5.


  • Speaking of per-storm ACE, here's this year's to-date tally ordered by ACE:
    BRET: 2.9450
    ARLENE: 1.9875
    EMILY: 1.9875
    CINDY: 1.8800
    DON: 1.7000
    GERT: 1.6025
    FRANKLIN: 0.4050
    HARVEY: 0.1600

    ACE contribution per storm


    • ACE distribution by day

  • A lot of people have been talking about how odd it is that none of 2011's storms to date have been able to make it to hurricane status. That's definitely remarkable. But of some note is the fact that every tropical depression this year has become a named storm. Over the past 16 seasons, that's only happened six times.



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Updated: 11 12, 2012 15:50 GMT   Permalink | A A A
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By The Numbers: 2010/09/29
Posted by: Neapolitan, 29 09, 2010 22:10 GMT +10
With today's designation (and rapid dissipation) of the very-wet Nicole as a tropical storm, the 2010 hurricane season stands at a pretty remarkable 14-7-5. To put that into perspective, that's just three named storms behind what 2005 (which ended with 27) had on this date, three behind 1933 (21), and just one behind 1995 (20). Finishing up the season at the same distance behind those years would give us, respectively, 24, 18, or 19 named storms. That's assuming a d...
Updated: 30 09, 2010 13:21 GMT   Permalink | A A A
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By The Numbers: 2010/09/22
Posted by: Neapolitan, 22 09, 2010 12:46 GMT +6
Today marks the one-month anniversary of the birth of Danielle. At the 11AM EDT TWO on August 22nd, the season TC count stood at 3-1-0, and ACE (Accumulated Cyclone Energy) was an anemic 9.095. Since then, we've gone an astounding 9-5-5, and have gathered an additional 117.34 ACE units. That's an average of one named storm every 3.45 days, a major hurricane every 6.2 days, and 3.78 ACE units per day.With Lisa, we now have seen six September storms (and there's a lik...
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By The Numbers: 2010/09/19
Posted by: Neapolitan, 19 09, 2010 21:54 GMT +6
A few highlights from the day:As of today, Igor will go down in the books as the largest Atlantic hurricane on record, with a gale diameter of 633 miles/1,018 km. Igor takes the number one spot from 1966's Faith, which had a gale diameter of 605 miles/973 km.As of today's 5pm TWO, Igor's ACE is 39.4875, which is--perhaps incredibly--higher than that of any storm in the Atlantic since 2004's Hurricane Ivan. ACE-wise, Igor has been a more energetic storm than even 200...
Updated: 20 09, 2010 01:13 GMT   Permalink | A A A
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By The Numbers: 2010/09/17
Posted by: Neapolitan, 18 09, 2010 00:27 GMT +7
A few highlights from the day:In just the past seven days, we've gathered as much ACE as the entire 2009 season, and in just the past five days, we've gathered as much ACE as all of 1997.26 days ago, the seasonal storm count stood at 3-1-0, and ACE was barely over nine. In those 26 days since, we've gone 8-5-5, and gathered nearly 106 ACE units. That is, quite literally, an entire average season's worth of ACE, nearly an entire average year's worth of both tropical ...
Updated: 18 09, 2010 00:44 GMT   Permalink | A A A
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