NAME PRONUNCIATION NAME PRONUNCIATIONThe National Hurricane Center will be making several changes this season in tropical storm reporting:
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ANDRES AHN DRASE- MARTY
BLANCA BLAHN- KAH NORA
CARLOS OLAF OH- LAHF
DOLORES PATRICIA
ENRIQUE ANH REE- KAY RICK
FELICIA FA LEE- SHA SANDRA
GUILLERMO GEE YER- MO TERRY
HILDA VIVIAN
IGNACIO EEG NAH- CIO WALDO
JIMENA HE MAY- NA XINA ZEE- NAH
KEVIN YORK
LINDA ZELDA ZEL- DAH
- The Tropical Weather Outlook, issued 4 times a day, will include categorical probabilities of storm development: Low (less than 30%), Medium (30-50%), High (over 50%).
- The Saffir-Simpson scale traditionally used to classify hurricane strength will be modified on an experimental basis to exclude storm surge and flooding indications. The reason for doing this is that the Saffir-Simpson scale is primarily a measure of maximum wind speed, but storm surge is affected by several other factors, such as storm size and forward speed, shape of coastline, and water depth. For example, Hurricane Ike last year made landfall as a Category 2 storm, but the storm surge was comparable to what is currently defined as a Category 4-5 storm. Emergency management officials reported that many residents refused to evacuate since the storm was "only" a Category 2 or 3 as it approached land. Likewise, Katrina (2005) had Category 3 winds at landfall, but the storm surge was equivalent to Category 5. On the other hand, Hurricane Charley (2004) had Category 4 winds but only Category 2 storm surge.
CapitalClimate provides a number of links to national, local, and international tropical storm information in the list to the left titled "Tropical Topics". Discussions of significant storms will be provided in blog posts as appropriate during the hurricane season.
Image: Eastern Pacific Tropical Outlook from National Hurricane Center.