Warm Waters Complicate Hurricane Forecasts and Raise Fears Along the Coast

In places still scarred by the devastation of recent storms, the arrival of hurricane season stirs anxiety and apprehension that push many to search for any sign — some based more on superstition than science — that can provide even a wisp of clarity about what may be headed their way.

And this year, two of the more reliable (and meteorologically sound) indicators have been sending conflicting signals, injecting even more volatility into the process.

An El Nino pattern, like the one expected to ramp up this season, typically impedes the formation of Atlantic hurricanes. At the same time, extremely warm waters are unnerving experts and coastal residents, with heightened sea surface temperatures posing a range of threats, including the ability to supercharge storms.

“We know that’s a recipe for hurricanes,” said Roishetta Sibley Ozane, describing her own elevated sense of worry, as the prospect of more storms forces her to relive the back-to-back hurricanes that destroyed her home in Westlake, Louisiana, in 2020.

That unusual confluence of factors led forecasters Thursday to raise the number of storms they expect this hurricane season, which started in June and runs through November, but it also led them to acknowledge that the circumstances were puzzling and made solid predictions even more difficult.

“Stuff just doesn’t feel right,” said Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University. “There’s just a lot of kind of screwy things that we haven’t seen before.”

In a news conference Thursday, officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the Atlantic hurricane season could produce 14 to 21 named tropical cyclones, including the five storms that have already formed. That is a slight increase from the agency’s original forecast in May of 12 to 17 tropical cyclones.

Forecasters now believe that six to 11 (previously five to nine) of those storms could become hurricanes, meaning they would reach winds of at least 74 mph. Those could include two to five (previously one to four) major hurricanes — Category 3 or higher — with winds of at least 111 mph.

El Nino, a climate pattern that recurs every few years, typically suppresses the formation of hurricanes in the Atlantic by creating a weather phenomenon called wind shear, in which wind speed and direction change with height in the atmosphere.

But for months, ocean temperatures have remained extraordinarily warm. They have climbed to nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit in some spots, destroying coral reefs, disrupting marine ecosystems and transforming Florida’s beach waters into something akin to a hot tub. Scientists believe the underlying influence of this alarming warming is human-driven climate change.

And those warmer waters can also make tropical cyclones more resilient to wind shear, effectively blunting El Nino’s ability to thwart storms, said Eric Blake, a scientist with the National Hurricane Center.

Experts have warned that warmer waters could also add to a storm’s potency once it has formed. That means even a less active season could still be devastating. Some noted the 1992 season, which was milder than average but produced Hurricane Andrew, one of the costliest storms to hit the United States.

“You don’t have to have a whole bunch of storms to have a real calamity,” said Craig E. Colten, a geographer at Louisiana State University.

And the quiet now, Blake cautioned, was no indication of how the rest of the season would look. In August, there is often a jolt in tropical activity. “So things can get really busy in a hurry,” he said.

The warm waters power what is known as rapid intensification, when a storm’s winds jump 35 mph in less than a day. That can be the difference between a Category 2 and a Category 4 hurricane slamming into the coast.

Some of the most powerful hurricanes to hit the Gulf Coast in recent years underwent rapid intensification, including Michael in 2018, Laura in 2020 and Ian in 2022. Researchers have found that rapid intensification is happening more frequently and could be linked to climate change.

“Warm water is fuel for a storm,” said Clay Tucker, a geography professor at the University of Southern Mississippi. “If you were to throw gasoline on a fire that’s already burning, that fire would grow really rapidly, really quickly. It’s the same idea.”

Across the Gulf Coast, many remain haunted by the destruction of past storms and the turbulence they unleashed. In New Orleans, which was most recently struck by Hurricane Ida in 2021, emergency officials have warned residents about the emotional toll, including the “anniversary effect” of feeling on edge, restless and even physically ill this time of year.

“Being hurricane season prepared also means being compassionate and kind to yourself during times of hardship,” NOLA Ready, the city’s emergency preparedness campaign, advised in a post on Instagram.

In and around Lake Charles, the stretch of southwestern Louisiana that had been shredded by Hurricane Laura and then Hurricane Delta just six weeks later, those usual jitters felt magnified this year. The oppressive heat this summer has been a worrisome sign.

“People still have PTSD,” said Ozane, whose experiences led her to create the Vessel Project of Louisiana, a mutual aid and disaster relief organization. “They’re afraid. They see their communities are not fully recovered, and here we are in another hurricane season.”

Families remain displaced or only recently settled. Obtaining federal support took a protracted effort. The housing and rental markets became a mess, making affordable housing scarce. And as a changing climate threatens to make hurricanes wetter, slower and more dangerous, worries have grown about the effects repeated hits could have.

“People are afraid Lake Charles will be wiped off the map,” Ozane said, “and we came very close to that with Hurricane Laura.”

After months crammed with her six children in hotel rooms, then months of piling into relatives’ homes, Meoshia Sibley is now finally settled. It was low-income housing, and she wanted something better, she said. Still, she was terrified of losing it.

The renewed hurricane threat brings her back to losing her home the last time, the misery of evacuating, the disruption to her children’s lives and the panic attacks incited by all of it.

Sibley, an administrative assistant and Ozane’s sister, has tried to save money to help with riding out hurricanes only for other demands to interfere with that. “It never fails that something always comes up,” she said.

“What am I going to do if a hurricane really comes?” she said. “How will I get to a safe place with these six children? It’s very stressful.”

During the busiest time of hurricane season, starting in August, she starts paying extra attention to the forecasts but also listens to the “word-of-mouth,” as she puts it, from other veterans of hurricanes who might be better at divining what could be coming.

Now, she said, the vibe is “up and down, up and down.” The heat has people nervous.

“I pray we don’t have a bad one this year,” Sibley said. “I pray it passes by. God has the final say so.” As she saw it, she had just one option: “Wait it out, see what happens.”