Name: National Hurricane Center: Models pointing to a busy 2021 season
Uploaded: 2021-04-09T16:02:25-0400
Duration: 488194
Description: WRAL meteorologist Kat Campbell interviews Ken Graham, director of the National Hurricane Center.

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WRAL meteorologist Kat Campbell interviews Ken Graham, director of the National Hurricane Center.

I'd like to welcome in ken Graham, director of the National Hurricane Center, ken, Thank you so much for joining us today. Great to be here. Thank you Colorado State just released their hurricane outlook for this season. Yesterday N. C. State University releases, there's next week. Are there any previews you can give us with the National Hurricane center outlook? I'll tell you know is going to have their outlook at the end of May. That's when we're going to get the real look at it. But you see the trends right. There's so many different entities that start looking at these forecasts. The waters are going to be warm. I mean you start looking at the long term models and we look like some sort of neutral to La Nina situation which is not helpful for us when it comes to hurricanes in the atlantic. So everything is that the models, it is pointing to a busy season. But one quick reminder I have to do this because I do it every year. Whether we have a record number of storms like 30 like we had last year or one. I'll tell you if it impacts north Carolina, even one and then it's a busy season. Absolutely. And we typically think of and above normal or below normal hurricane season. But we were just notified today that the definition of normal is changing. Why is that? Yeah, every 10 years we update the climate records whether it's temperature, precipitation, it's updated every 10 years with the last 30 years of data. So what happens is, you know, it's time so it's time to update it. It's been those 10 years. So looking at the last 30 years, Yeah, we have a change to the actual normal goes from 12 to 14 hurricanes in this season. So a little bit more and a few causes. You look at, you know, we're naming some of those, those smaller storms a little more. There's probably some influence going on here with, with climate change and, and it's interesting to look at the instrumentation. We've got better equipment, we have radar on the, on the aircraft, we got better satellite data. We're seeing more stuff too. So what the exact cause of that? There's gonna be some science and research is going to have to go into that. But some sort of combination of things. Absolutely. And we talked to our viewers about this. There was some discussion over the winter about actually moving up the start of hurricane season for now. You guys have decided against that. But you are implementing something new to account for preseason development. Right. Yeah. Six years in a row. We had storms before the official start of the atlantic season. So we're going to actually issue that outlook product on May 15th. We're already doing it in the pacific. So we already were doing those type of things but we issued so many special outlooks last year. Nobody knew when they were going to come out. Right. It was it was just we need to clean that up. So we're gonna go ahead and do that outlook on May 15th. Both the atlantic and the pacific. I think it's gonna be so much helpful but we're going to look into the future. So we have a team built, remember this isn't just the United States, I think we served 28 countries in this World Meteorological Organization. So we're all going to have to have those discussions were going to put a team together to look at it. Um Not quite as simple as just moving it. You get into the severe weather season a little bit more if it's if it's early and you get further away from the peak of the hurricane season as well. So there's pros and cons to whether we need to move this up or not and we've been impacted by tropical storm Arthur and Bonnie and those preseason, you know, developments in previous years. But we also have a new version of the american model that's out this year. It's been touted as more accurate and hurricane forecast. You guys have put out examples comparing it to the old one for Hurricane Dorian. What makes this new tool more reliable? I think what I'm looking forward to at the new american model, the GFS, I'm looking for that genesis phase. I'm telling you what, once these storms form and then they get going, our accuracy is, is pretty good. Were very good with the track. We're getting better with the intensity. But that genesis phase when you have three different centers, they're jumping around and you can have different solutions. You know, you could get a 30 or 40 miles jumping that center when these storms first form and it can make the difference between florida or north Carolina, it jumps wildly towards the end. So I'm looking forward to getting a better handle on that genesis phase early further out. That's what I'm looking forward to. So we'll see how it does this season. And I know you guys have some other really neat tools coming out this year. Can you explain the new tools to help north Carolina prepare? I think one of the big ones is the upgrade to the storm surge model. I'm super excited about this. When people think of hurricanes, they usually think about the intensity, how strong it is, They think of the track, never be forward speed, how fast it goes, but structure structure has so much to do with the actual storm surge. Remember Florence in Florence actually decreased in intensity. Remember the storm surge never changed, We never changed our forecast for the storm surge because it was big. It was just a large storm. So structure, how large the storm is, has so much to do with storm surge. This new model, we're going to get more that data into their, into the structure, the structure into that model. And I think we're going to have a better output when it comes to storm surge forecasting. So that's going to be a great service to north Carolina. Oh yeah, we're definitely looking forward to that. We know a lot about the potential dangers from the flooding and the storm surge and just how much water can impact our state during hurricanes. So we are just over a month and a half from the official start of hurricane season. Now, what should we be doing inland here in central north Carolina to prepare right now? You know, one thing about these hurricanes, it sure isn't just a coastal issue. You know, we talk about the second leading cause of fatalities in these tropical systems as inland rain, 25% of the fatalities is inland rain. So anyone inland, you gotta prepare now. We're getting ready here here at the hurricane center. We're getting our systems ready, We're getting our folks ready. We're getting mentally ready for for another season. So it's advice for everyone to do the same thing. Let's start getting ready. Think about that family plan. It's never too early to start preparing because I don't know what happened to the last six months or so, but it is amazing that we're approaching another hurricane season. So let's start getting ready now. It's, it's better to get ready now before the threat comes because that's just tough. Once the threat is already there, it's tough to really think about what you have to do. Let's do it early. And a lot of our residents here in central north Carolina, they visit the coast vacation there, they have homes, there is there anything special that folks with coastal interests need to be doing to prepare early this year? I think it's get the homes ready. You know, you make sure you have everything ready to go to be able to, to protect that home when the storm comes because remember, it's not just the wind, the wind is a big part of it, but it's also that surge when the surge comes in. So a lot of those elevated homes, what do you have underneath the home? You know, start securing some of those items. Now, start thinking ahead on how you're going to protect that home because that's that's one of the big things about these hurricanes. It's not just one threat, All the different threats we saw esa es with the tornadoes, we saw wind associated with some of the big hurricanes, but storm surge and rain, it's going to prepare for all those impacts. Look around the house, I do that, I've always done that for years. What kind of trees do I have? What's the health of those trees? Um and start looking at how you can mitigate some of that damage ahead of time. And there are a lot of misconceptions about hurricanes. What is one in particular that you wish, that people knew more about us? You know, the category has always comes up right. Everybody talks about these categories and there's no such thing as just a one. And, and as the chair of the World Meteorological Organization Region for Hurricane Committee, we, we do the naming. We actually retire the names that come up with the names. There's never going to be a hurricane just to so please, I just urge everybody a category one. If it's large enough you can get life threatening rain, life threatening storm surge in wind. If it's a one, just as much as you could a category four. So please, when, when we go through these storms, please listen to those impacts because that's what's gonna get you. Not necessarily the category. And we remember that all too well from Florence just a couple of years ago. Thank you so much for speaking with us today, ken we are hoping things stay quiet this hurricane season. Always best to prepare. And we really appreciate your insight on some of the new tools that we have this year and hopes of some more accurate forecasts and giving people more time to prepare You bet. Thank you. Thanks for having me on the show.

Jessica Patrick

National Hurricane Center: Models pointing to a busy 2021 season

Ken Graham, director of the National Hurricane Center.

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I'm meteorologist, Elizabeth Gardner. Pretty day out there, lots of sunshine, humidity on the lower side and temperatures. Well, a little above normal. 84 in Raleigh and Durham, 85 in Fayetteville. But you know, if you can find a shady spot today, it won't be too bad, especially compared to where we're headed in the next couple of days and then of course, um, into the summer too. So we're right there between comfy and tolerable right now with dew point. So it feels pretty nice out there. We are about to see that dew point though. Really starting to climb by Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday through the weekend, we're back to tropical, which is our dew point up around 70 degrees. So that's gonna feel sticky for us. We have a cold front that's going to move into North Carolina install and bring us some afternoon and evening storms and a real summer feel to the weekend. It's not going to rain all week and long, but we will be back to that unsettled afternoon and evening thunderstorm pattern. Beautiful today though. Do you have time to eat your lunch outside? It's a green light today. Temperatures will be in the mid to upper seventies again with fairly low humidity. So take advantage until before it gets a whole lot stickier out there. And a great evening for baseball too. The Bulls start a home stand tonight, 79 at game time and then 83 Wednesday and 86 Thursday at game time, there's a small chance of a thunderstorm on Thursday, but so much fun happening at the ballpark. They've always got these neat promotions going on over there. Our normal high is 81. So we're now looking at highs above that. As a matter of fact, we're way above it on Thursday at 92. But that is our only 90 degree day in our seven day forecast. We take a little sneak peek at Memorial Day and we have a 40% chance of showers and thunderstorms. It's likely to be during the day. You should have a good chunk of the day each day, um, to get out and enjoy. Now Friday is the tricky one because I know a lot of folks like to hit the road Friday, you know, in the afternoon or right after work. And that's probably when we'll have some of those scattered showers and storms, you know, elsewhere. If you're not having to travel, hopefully you can just kind of plan your activities around it. It's going to be a nice start tomorrow morning with temperatures in the upper fifties. But then after that, we definitely have some warm afternoons and some warm mornings too with our overnight lows in the sixties.

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