Hurricane season is difficult to forecast.

But one thing about it is highly predictable.

Sometime in early April, the team at Colorado State University will issue its seasonal outlook and news outlets along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts will eat it up.

Front-page stories will announce the findings of Dr. Phil Kloztbach and his team inspired by the late Dr. William Gray.

There’s a paradox at play every time the predictions are made.

They’re almost always wrong in the sense that they seldom arrive at the actual number of storms once the season plays out.

What value is a prediction that isn’t correct?

In case you missed it: First forecast: Experts predict 5 hurricanes this season

On the other hand, they focus attention on hurricane season a couple of months before it commences. That’s never a bad thing.

Often overlooked in the annual report are two sentences the CSU scientists place high in their introduction each year:

“As is the case with all hurricane seasons, coastal residents are reminded that it only takes one hurricane making landfall to make it an active season for them. They should prepare the same for every season, regardless of how much activity is predicted.”

If the annual prediction serves no other purpose than to get people to read those words, it has done its job.

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The science behind the hurricane prediction is mind-boggling.

They take into account things like sea surface temperatures from all parts of the Atlantic Ocean, the multivariate ENSO index, the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation, and thermohaline circulation.

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Using complex formulas and computers, they arrive at their best guess at the number of named storms, the number of hurricanes and the number of major hurricanes of Category 3 strength or higher. They’ve been doing it for 36 years, so they have it down to a science, if you’ll forgive the pun.

Over about that same period living in Florida, I’ve developed my own system for predicting the number of hurricanes in the upcoming season.

It involves putting a game on TV, cracking open a beer and looking through old newspapers to find the number of storms in the previous year.

In 2018, for instance, there were 15 named storms, eight hurricanes and two major hurricanes. My prediction for 2019: 15 named storms, eight hurricanes and two major hurricanes. For the record, the CSU 2019 prediction is for 13 named storms, five hurricanes and two major hurricanes.

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Some years my numbers are closer to the actual numbers. For instance, in 2017 I predicted 15, seven and six. CSU forecast 11, four and two. The actual numbers were 17, 10 and six.

Other years, the CSU numbers are better. In 2014 I called for 14, two and zero. CSU said nine, three and one. The final numbers were eight, six and two.

The point isn’t that I’m better at predicting hurricanes than a team of learned scholars or that those scholars shouldn’t keep doing what they’re doing. The science underlying their predictions helps us better understand storms, and that could lead to better, even lifesaving, predictions about their behavior.

The point is that the predictions are more of a public relations hook than practical information.

The scientists say it best in their report’s introduction and the paragraphs that follow.

“Everyone should realize that it is impossible to precisely predict this season’s hurricane activity in early April… We issue these forecasts to satisfy the curiosity of the general public and to bring attention to the hurricane problem.”

I’ll crack open a beer to that.

Connect with Brent Batten at, on Twitter @NDN_BrentBatten and at   

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