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U.S. Climate Prediction Center Seasonal Forecast

Farmer's Almanac Forecasts for the next two months.

The OLD Farmer's Almanac forecasts for the next 2 months.



OCTOBER 2001:

U.S. winter forecast - Sharp swings in temperature and rain or snowfall are likely this coming winter, with a threat of heavy lake-effect snows and Nor'easters. Don't expect a repeat of the record-breaking cold temperatures of November-December of last year, but this winter should be cooler than the warm winters of the late 1990s.

This February is expected to be one of the warmest Februarys in history, the 2002 edition of the Old Farmer's Almanac says. They expect this prediction - and the temperatures - will spark the debate on global warming.

SEPTEMBER 2001:

The Nigerian government issued a warning that they have just received a scientific report that Mount Cameroon could erupt before the end of the year, spewing deadly gases that could kill any living thing in the area.

Readings show the ozone hole over the Antarctic has reopened. And, like last year, it appears to be widening to record size.

Less than three years after Central America was devastated by Hurricane Mitch, an extended drought has withered crops across the region, threatening lives as well as livelihoods. Vast swathes of basic crops have been lost in Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala due to the lack of rain that usually falls in May and waters the first harvests - at least 700,000 people are in danger of famine in the region.

Wildfires break out in unexpected places, then they do things that surprise firefighters. But maybe such fires won't always be so unpredictable. Trailblazing scientists are combining satellite data with sophisticated computer programs to learn more about capricious wildfires - including where they're likely to start and what we can do to prevent them.

With no El Niño or La Niña to botch up the forecast, the Farmer's Almanac's secret formula projects another "old-fashioned" winter, one that begins early, with heaps of snow beginning in late November. The almanac says its long-term predictions - based on a secret formula involving sunspots, positions of the planets and tidal action - are correct about 80 percent of the time. They predict an active winter then a wet summer in the U.S. Northeast, Pacific Northwest and Southeast. The middle of the country will be drier than usual.


AUGUST 2001:

Besides its well-known quakes, the city of Los Angeles apparently has an annual rise and fall of as much as 12 centimetres, according to researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey. Seasonal rises and falls in groundwater levels cause the ground level itself to rise each winter and sink each summer in L.A.

The El Nino weather phenomenon, which caused thousands of deaths during its last appearance, is returning in weakened form, United Nations scientists predict. The last El Nino in 1997-8 set off fatal storms, heat waves, fires, floods and drought, and caused an estimated $32 billion in property damage. As yet they can only predict climate trends until early 2002 and cannot say whether El Nino will strengthen or decline next year.


JULY 2001:

The increase in the number of hurricanes seen in recent years is likely to continue, perhaps for decades, according to a new report.


JUNE 2001:

A third of Washington's cherry crop, and about 50 percent of the state's Bing cherry crop, is estimated to have been destroyed by the freak storm that marched across the Yakima Valley on June 27th, dropping more rain than the region usually sees in the entire month of June and pelting orchards with hailstones as large as nickels. The ferocity of Wednesday's weather was unlike anything some have ever seen. "Now I have an idea of what the final wrath might look like," said one orchard owner. Within 10 minutes, he said, "it looked like someone took a shotgun ... and just opened up on the trees."

Experts are predicting the threat of wildfire will remain high in western United States through the end of September.

PHILIPPINES - MAYON VOLCANO - Villagers took advantage of a lull to check on their mountainside homes, despite warnings that the volcano could erupt again at any moment. After exploding Sunday in fountains of bright red lava, the Mayon volcano calmed temporarily. But scientists warned of more pyroclastic flows, streams of low-lying ash, gas and rock fragments that can flow at 60 mph and incinerate everything in their path.

As residents and government officials in Florida wait and look to the sky for relief, the lakes and rivers that help feed our growing thirst are disappearing. Is this temporary or just the beginning? Hernando County surface waters have been dropping not just for the last three extremely dry years, but for more than a decade.

After months of pessimistic predictions that California was facing a summer of blackouts , the energy outlook is brightening. Increased conservation, new power plants and more electricity imports are easing the threat of routine summer outages.


MAY 2001:

A formula for disaster - Coastal growth, predictions of hurricanes worry experts. The hurricane season began June 1st, with more than a quarter of the nation's 282 million people living on the frontline, from North Carolina to Georgia to Texas. The growth of the region comes as experts worry that the Atlantic Ocean is entering a more active hurricane period and officials grope with plans to evacuate the millions who now live within a few miles of the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico.

One of the worst droughts since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s is gripping much of the US - hurting farmers, scaring firefighters, and forcing water restrictions from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., to Midland, Texas. The flint-dry conditions now encompass a full one-third of the United States.

HURRICANE SEASON FORECAST - As many as 11 tropical storms - including five to seven hurricanes - could threaten the Atlantic and Gulf coasts this year. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted what it called a normal hurricane season this year, but it warned that doesn't mean the danger is less. A normal Atlantic hurricane season typically brings eight to 11 tropical storms, of which five to seven reach hurricane strength. Such a season can include two or three major storms. Hurricane season for the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and Caribbean lasts from June 1 to Nov. 30.

Mountains, and even whitecaps can change climate - Two separate international teams of scientists have come up with evidence showing the majestic Himalayan Mountains can influence weather all over the Earth, and whitecaps on a wind-blown sea can reflect so much solar energy back into space that the entire climate system is altered.

A large-scale humanitarian disaster looms ever closer to the lives of the drought-affected population of central, western and southern Sudan. Thousands of people are at risk of starvation.


APRIL 2001:

The National Weather Service predicts Iowans will see the Mississippi rise to flood levels that approach or exceed those they witnessed in the devastating floods of 1993.

Iowa - Just about the time the flooding Mississippi River was cresting, mercifully, at below predicted levels 200 miles to the north, word was spreading here that the Army Corps of Engineers had worked up some new numbers for this area, bad numbers, again. In less than a week, the predictions for this stretch of river - as with many other stretches - have gone from bad to worse to potentially disastrous.

Wondering what to wear before heading out the door? Try taking a look at your toast. A design student at Britain's Brunel University has invented a toaster that predicts the weather. The toaster browns an image of a sun, cloud or rain cloud on toast, depending on the weather forecast it takes from the Internet.

Predicted hurricane season - As a weak "El Nino" settles into the eastern Pacific, the coming Atlantic hurricane season should be an average one with 10 tropical storms and six hurricanes, 2 of which could be major. The probability of a major hurricane hitting the U.S. coast is predicted at about 65 percent, much higher than normal.

Forecast expects cool North American summer, except in the West - A respected Salomon meteorologist said in his 2001 spring and summer outlook "it certainly appears to us that the consistent warmth of the 1990s, during both summers and winters has come to an end. Parts of the West, especially California, are the exception and are expected to have a hot summer with numerous 'heat waves'. Another place to watch would be Florida which has been hit by extremely dry conditions recently.


MARCH 2001 -

Regions of the United States take turns being swept by wildfires. Predictions are that big burns will hit the Northwest and the Southeast Atlantic regions this year. The smell of charred brush, wood and rubber already lingers over Florida, which is suffering through a drought of its own and where 1,500 wildfires were reported in January alone.

The science of predicting the weather - "You may think weather forecasters goofed horribly about recent snowstorms. But their forecasts - based in intricate, complex computer models - are actually better than ever."


FEBRUARY 2001 -

CANADA - MASSIVE SPRING FLOODING FEARED - People in Manitoba and Saskatchewan are digging out from one of the worst winters on record. Some areas have seen 200% more snow than normal.

JANUARY 2001:

A Dry Spring and Tight Water Supply Predicted as California Copes with Power Crisis - They are predicting low Sierra Nevada snowpack levels throughout the summer in California, which depends heavily on the runoff to power hydroelectric plants.

ARKANSAS - Summer fire danger- millions of downed trees and branches are spread across thousands of acres because of the December ice storms. State emergency officials are bracing for what could be a brutal fire season this summer. A hot day, a spark and a dry wind, and fires in Arkansas forests will be far more widespread than they have been in a generation.

Scientists are growing increasingly fearful of a major eruption at Mount Merapi volcano. But in a bamboo house high on its slopes, a traditional shaman says not to worry -- he's taken care of the problem.

Computers Predict U.S. Tsunami - NOAA Scientists See Big Wave in West Coast's Future.

The weather of 2000 was shaped by variability and extremes, which will continue throughout the winter. The eastern and western United States will experience additional cold outbreaks at least through March with periods of moderation in between. The wintry weather was not unexpected, however, with the Weather Service calling for a return to more normal winter conditions after several years of mild winters.

DECEMBER 2000:

Scientists have confirmed what many probably already suspected: It was a year of strange and unruly weather.

With much of the United States in the midst of unseasonably cold and wet weather, government officials offer this winter outlook: Expect more of the same. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said temperatures this winter likely would dip lower than usual in the northern Plains, upper Midwest, Great Lakes, northern Rocky Mountains and parts of the Northwest. Increased amounts of rain and snow were forecast from Texas east to the Carolinas and north to New England.

The warming trend that has gripped our climate for the past 20 years will make 2000 one of the hottest years since 1860, despite La Nina's cooling effect on the tropical Pacific and other anomalies, the United Nations weather agency said. This year will be the fifth or sixth warmest since 1860, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said. Eight of the 10 warmest years in the 140-year period have occurred since 1990 and 1998, when the El Nino current warmed the Pacific, was the hottest on record. 2000 was the 22nd successive year that global temperatures have been above the average of the 1961-1990 base period.

NOVEMBER 2000:

Can a squirrel predict the weather? It's that time of year when everyone is looking for signs of hope or doom, trying to decipher Mother Nature's clues about the impending winter.

* Do caterpillars predict a long cold winter ahead?

OCTOBER 2000:

The mighty Rio Grande is a trickle of its former self and the San Luis Valley's vast underground aquifer fell dramatically this summer, thanks to the worst drought in decades. If southern Colorado's mountains don't get a significant amount of snow this winter after last year's record low snowpack, according to officials, the situation could be even worse next year.

With no La Niña or El Niño this year on which to base a forecast, climate observers say there is no way to predict whether it will be wet or dry.

For the first time in three years, the tropical Pacific Ocean isn't running unusually hot or cold, and the neutral conditions are leaving climatologists with fewer pieces of the puzzle. Gone are the heady days of confident predictions months into the future.


SEPTEMBER 2000:

Fall Foliage Web Cams

Though the federal Climate Prediction Center is calling for "generally warmer than normal" temperatures across the country, it does expect this winter to be cooler than the last three.

"Get ready for strange winter weather, some unusual lurches between hot and cold, wet and dry, and a hard-to-forecast season. Something unusual is happening to El Nino, La Nina and the other powerful forces that have shaped the weather in recent years. They're quiet, meteorologists say. Too quiet."

For the second year in a row, the 209-year-old Old Farmer's Almanac and the 182-year-old Farmers' Almanac are in agreement:
Forecast for Fall - "La Niña — the weather phenomenon sometimes blamed for droughts, rain and fires — has fizzled. As a result, we will be seeing more normal weather patterns this fall and winter. But "normal" may be tougher than many think. "

The Farmers' Almanac, which has been making predictions since 1818 and which claims an 80 percent to 85 percent accuracy rate, expects September rains for rain-starved Texas, a rainy fall for the Northeast and Great Lakes, and a late, mild winter in many parts of the country, perhaps even milder than last year. No major snowstorms in the Midwest or Northeast until Dec. 12. A significant snow, particularly in the Dakotas and Nebraska, from Nov. 28 to 30. More snow could follow in the North Central states, including a storm in the Rockies and Plains from Dec. 24 to 27.

El Nino and La Nina, the terrible twins blamed for a spate of destructive weather patterns worldwide, have finally dissipated. But their impact on the weather will likely continue for some time to come.


AUGUST 2000:
With heating oil prices galloping to their highest levels since the Gulf War, consumers in the United States may be left in the cold this winter as already low national supplies are drained to warm up Europe.

"Critical drought conditions in the Southeast are killing trees, leaving them so brittle their limbs snap or so frail they become easy prey for fungi and insects. Florida forestry officials estimate drought will affect as many as 4 million trees this year. With normal rainfall, about 1 million trees die of disease and natural causes in the state annually."

Will Japan survive the summer? "For more than a month, daily earthquake bulletins have flashed across TV screens in Japan, sometimes every half hour. Several quakes have been so strong that broadcasters have thrown out normal programming and switched to emergency warning mode. Moreover, three volcanoes have belched large eruptions in the past four months.

With the peak of hurricane season starting next week, U.S. hurricane specialists are warning there could be as many as three major hurricanes between now and the end of November.

With the worst two months of the western U.S. fire season yet to come, the fire center is already at the highest level of alert. "We have the potential for catastrophic urban interface fires in every state in the West. 'It's one thing to handle one of them, but if we get the wrong lightning strike in the wrong place, we could have 20 of them.'' The latest forecast is for a period of intense dry lightning for Northern California and the Pacific Northwest, which means trouble for an additional region that has so far been largely unaffected.

Agricultural disaster declarations have been issued from South Carolina to Florida to Alabama. And the list continues to grow as the drought moves westward and is affecting the health of crops and livestock in parts of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Similar scenarios are playing out across the Plains states, especially Nebraska and Colorado. There are actually two droughts currently underway - one in the Midwest and one in the South - and the situation is expected to get worse in the next few months before it improves.

Cooler Atlantic Ocean water and a weakening La Nina cold-water phenomenon in the Pacific may mean a lighter-than-expected Atlantic hurricane season this year, a noted hurricane forecaster says.

JULY 2000:

As wildfires continue to burn hundreds of thousands of acres of land in the western United States, fire officials today said this is the worst fire season in more than a decade, and that the outlook calls for it to get worse.

Researchers have discovered as much as 50 percent of the saltwater marsh grasses in southeastern Louisiana appear to be dead or dying. The causes are unknown, and the implications are ominous.

A cluster of satellites working together to monitor the Earth's environmental changes and improve weather forecasting will be operating within three years, NASA scientists disclosed. "Our vision is to enable reliable prediction of climate, weather and natural hazards," says Ghassem Asrar. "We want to see these predictions broadly used to save lives, property and provide economic benefits to the American public and the world." NASA technology will revolutionize remote sensing and create enormous economic benefits. With combined satellite data, for example, it's believed a hurricane landfall can be predicted to within 50 nautical miles in the next decade instead of several hundred miles.

In New Jersey, geologists are now warning of possible tsunamis. About 100 miles off the coast are layers of water-laden rock, originally laid down as silt by the Hudson river at the end of the last ice age. Some geologists fear this porous rock could suddenly give way en masse, setting off a tidal wave.

A climate modeller from South Africa claims he predicted the heavy rains that caused Mozambique's devastating floods. If more notice had been taken, he says, the floods could have been reduced.

JUNE 2000:

Seismologists Seek Clues to the Future in Earthquake Fault's Past .

Farmers in Nebraska, Missouri, Texas and several southeastern states face more above-normal temperatures and below-normal rain through September, U.S. government forecasters say.

Hurricane expert William Gray now says this season could be even more active and perilous than he prophesied just two months ago. He now predicts 12 tropical storms that will grow into eight hhurricanes and four intense hurricanes - storms with winds higher than 110 mph.

MAY 2000:
Icy clouds filled with nitric acid helped eat away the protective ozone layer over the Arctic last winter. The clouds lasted longer during the 1999/2000 winter than during past winters, allowing greater ozone depletion over the Arctic. Global warming could help the long-lived clouds last even longer, despite efforts by industry to reduce the amount of chlorine spewing out.

Scientists puzzle over latest weird weather. U.S. rides out La Niña. But is all the recent wackiness likely to persist in the long term?

U.S. government space and ocean monitors indicate the end is near for La Nina,the weather pattern that has dominated the globe for the past two years and is blamed for increased hurricanes and drought in the United States.

The National Weather Service predicts a drought will continue this summer. Severe conditions are expected in Florida, Georgia, and parts of several other states.

Farmers Wary of Drought

APRIL 2000:
Climate patterns inscribed over the past 700 years in tree rings suggest the Southwestern United States could be slipping into a deep, prolonged drought, according to new research by a University of New Mexico scientist.

Hurricane experts warn storms are getting worse

Hurricane expert Bill Gray forecasts that 11 named storms will brew in the Atlantic this season. That's fewer than last year, but still above normal.

MARCH 2000:

Japan's Mount Usu fulfills predictions and erupts

Scientists are winning the battle to end the ancient terror of a killer volcano blasting unexpectedly to life, and the eruption of Mount Usu is proof that volcano prediction is improving.

An iceberg of near-record size -- about twice as big in area as the state of Delaware -- is breaking off from Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf and may soon be adrift. The oblong chunk of ice is 183 miles long and 22 miles wide. The iceberg is much larger than one that broke away last October and posed a potential shipping hazard to vessels rounding Cape Horn. That chunk was 40 miles by 11 miles. Photos and information on the iceberg.

The SeaWiFS satellite has captured many images of intense dust storms over the past year. Most recently, a dust storm the size of Spain spread out from the Sahara Desert into the Atlantic Ocean. Recent geological studies have shown connections between declining coral reefs and intense Saharan dust storms. Scientists also believe the sandstorms may help predict the frequency of Atlantic hurricanes.

Do Pacific winds predict Caribbean hurricanes? When westerly winds — that is, winds blowing from the west — reach the side of the Pacific near the Americas, hurricanes are four times more likely in the Gulf and Caribbean than when Pacific Ocean winds blow the other way.

Flood-ravaged Mozambique has lost almost all of its livestock to the recent devastation. A spokesman for the World Society for the Protection of Animals reported that a team sent to the country to assess the disaster found a "catastrophe of biblical proportions." The situation was predicted to worsen as surviving livestock were killed off by diseases and insects proliferated by the floods. "There has been almost a total wipe-out of animals affected by flooding, with at least 150,000 believed to have died." The team reported that they had not interviewed a single survivor of the flood who had been able to save their livestock.

There are heightened concerns that La Nina-inspired drought could plague the U.S. Southeast this spring and summer. The U.S. Forest Service reinforced that concern by issuing a 13-state "fire advisory" for a region stretching from Texas to Virginia. There have already been 14,151 wildfires across the United States so far this year, compared to 18,805 for all of 1999. Some 13,186 fires across the Southern states have charred 258,690 acres. The Southeast fire season runs from mid-March to mid-May.

Ed O'Lenic, a meteorologist with the U.S. Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Md., said this winter has been warmer all over the country and around the globe. "We did predict a warm winter this year, but what we have seen far exceeded anybody's expectations," he said. Long-range forecasts call for warm, dry conditions to prevail through the spring followed by a gradual weakening of La Nina.

Rains that have lashed southern Africa and prompted floods that have displaced at least a million Mozambicans have been triggered by exceptionally warm ocean water temperatures. Sea surface temperatures over the Mozambican channel have been unusually high. Scientists were unsure of the causes that lay behind the warming of the ocean. Meterologists say the La Nina weather pattern appears to have reached its maturity and it is not usually associated with severe weather.

FEBRUARY 2000:

The unusually dry winter, which forecasters blame on the Pacific Ocean phenomenon La Niña, appears to be pushing northern New Mexico quickly toward what the National Weather Service predicts will be "active" fire season.

Avalanche Forecasting

Mapping Sickness - Can Your Geographic State Predict Your Physical Health? The Weather Service thinks so - weather.com features daily maps of the continental U.S. that show "daily pain", "respiratory distress" and "influenza", caused by weather conditions.

A NASA satellite now supplies detailed, real-time information on how the winds over 90% of the oceans are blowing. The measurements, in combination with other satellite measurements of clouds, temperature and other climate data can be used for understanding how different weather systems and storms develop and for predicting weather over the entire globe. The satellite also can track wave and current movements, as well as shifts in polar ice. Satellite data.

North Atlantic Oscillation - - goes from strong to weak, "positive" to "negative," on to off, every few weeks. Combined with La Nina, it can set the stage for major snowstorms in the Eastern U.S.

A host of America's top weather scientists gathered at the Salt Lake Executive Airport Monday to launch an ambitious project that should result in better weather predictions, both for the 2002 Winter Games and winter storms in general. The project, the Intermountain Precipitation Experiment, will use the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's famous "hurricane hunter" aircraft, as well as Doppler radar mounted on trucks, during the intensive one-month research.

JANUARY 2000:

A newly discovered phenomenon called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is a long-range pattern of warm and cool spells in the Pacific that might drive the North American climate. Researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1998 found what they say is a connection between those ocean flip-flops, lasting 10 years or more, and precipitation over western North America. There is evidence that the next flop, toward a drought pattern in New Mexico, is under way. While they get drier, the Pacific Northwest is likely to get wetter.

La Niña redrawing weather patterns - Phenomenon likely to control climate for another winter. Strange as the weather may seem, it comes as little surprise to meteorologists. Since fall, just as they did last year, they've been talking about milder-than-normal conditions in the mid-Atlantic states, an increased risk of severe weather in the Ohio Valley, and below-normal temperatures on the California coast.

Rivers in the Northwest and on the Eastern seaboard are likely to rise beyond normal levels in the first half of the year, according to the first such predictions based on the current La Nina cooling of the Pacific Ocean. The forecasts, to be published next week by the U.S. Geological Survey, also predict a greater likelihood of swelling in the rivers of the north central states and Appalachia but diminished chances for floods in the Southwest, New England and northern Mississippi River basin.

DECEMBER 1999:

Winds Shifting at North Pole - Dec. 21, 1999 — Frigid arctic weather is not moving as far south during winter in the northern hemisphere, and may be causing higher temperatures throughout Europe and Asia as well as a marked decrease in rainfall in Spain. Scientists at the American Geophysical Union presented their reports on the changing weather patterns at a meeting in San Francisco last week. The researchers theorized that shifting polar winds may be also causing the damaging winter weather across Europe and North America. Severe winter weather occurs when higher temperatures in the lower latitudes meet up with the icy conditions emanating from the North Pole, generating high-altitude winds that eventually draw heat and moisture from both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The group reported that the "polar vortex" has become tighter since 1970 and that winds in the upper atmosphere are blowing in a more constrained and powerful circle around the North Pole. The scientists said they were not certain if the change is part of the greenhouse effect or if it is simply a natural phenomenon.

This has been Planet Earth's fifth warmest year since consistent global records began in 1860, British meteorologists said on Thursday. 'The rapid cooling of temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, the so-called La Nina, has contributed to 1999 being significantly cooler than 1998, the hottest year on record,' said the Met Office's David Parker. 'This large natural year-on-year variability is exactly what we expect to see superimposed on a long-term warming due to man-made greenhouse gas emissions. In England, barring a late cold snap, temperatures were on course for 1999 to be the warmest year since records began in 1659, beating the previous warmest year, 1990. The forecast for 2000 shows a high probability of it being warmer than 1999 as the cold Pacific warms again naturally, but only a low probability of beating the 1998 record.

EARTHQUAKE PREDICTED - On the evening of Friday, December 10th, thousands of jellyfish were accidently sucked into the water intakes of a major power plant in the Philippines. More than 40 million Philippines residents were left without electricity. Rumors abounded that the migration of the jellyfish into the intake facilities of the power plants was an omen of an impending deadly earthquake. But officials discounted the speculation saying that the gathering of jellyfish was probably just a natural phenomenon. Early Sunday morning, December 12th, a powerful 6.8 earthquake struck the Philippine island of Luzon. At least 5 people were killed and dozens injured. The shaking lasted a full 30 seconds and numerous buildings in Manila suffered cracks and shattered glass. Power to many areas was knocked out for the second time in two days.

CAN DOGS PREDICT EARTHQUAKES? In Japan and China, dogs, along with sophisticated scientific instruments, are trusted as major predictors of earthquakes. Dogs' superior senses alert them to coming tremblors hours, even days before they occur. Dogs will pace, become restless, bark at nothing and maybe even run away when they sense an earthquake coming.

On November 30., the long, nerve-racking, quirk-filled hurricane season of 1999 finally drew to a close. That would be not a minute too soon for many Miamians living in this prime hurricane zone, whose nerves fray as the season progresses. But it may be that the worst is yet to come. William Gray, one of the most prominent American hurricane forecasters, announced last week that a new era of intense hurricane activity is about to unfold. Likely to be hit more than ever, he said, will be the Caribbean islands, the East Coast of the United States and the Florida Peninsula. The last intense era of hurricane activity ended in the 1960s, Mr. Gray said, when Florida and the East Coast were not nearly so extensively developed. During the relatively quiet period that stretched from 1970 to 1994, more people were lured to the shoreline, and many more homes and businesses in prime waterfront locations are in jeopardy today. ''If this new period of increased landfalling storms is now with us, it could pose serious threats to safety and to property for the country,'' Mr. Gray said. The reasons for the renewed activity involve several ''climate signals'' that have been reliable indicators in the past, he said, including above-average sea temperatures in the North Atlantic and above-average rainfall in Africa. For the past two busy seasons, the presence of La Niña, the mass of cold water in the eastern equatorial Pacific, has managed to keep at bay the wind shear that helps to weaken strong hurricanes.
Mr. Gray predicted this year that there would be 14 named storms in 1999, nine of them hurricanes. Four of those hurricanes would be intense, he predicted. The final count: 12 named storms, with eight of them qualifying as hurricanes. Five of those hurricanes were major. Mr. Gray's predictions for 2000 will be released next year.
By Sue Anne Pressley Washington Post Service



FARMERS' ALMANAC PREDICTION FOR THE WINTER OF 1999:
Parts of the U.S. have another Year 2000 problem to worry about - a powerful storm in the last days of 1999. The Farmer's Almanac predicts a stormy November and December, capped by more than a foot of snow in the last week of the year for the Midwest and Northeast. The 183-year-old Farmers' Almanac says that its weather predictions are right 80% of the time. It bases its weather forecasts on a secret formula that involves sunspots, postition of the planets and tidal action caused by the moon.

According to scientists at the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, the current La Niña pattern will last through the winter of 1999-2000. For states in the Pacific Northwest, that means wetter-than-normal conditions. Along the southern tier of the country, it means drier, warmer conditions. And in the Midwest, it could mean a bitter cold and more record snow in Chicago.

The 208th annual edition of the Old Farmer's Almanac is forecasting a widespread drought next summer after a relatively mild, dry winter for the United States.
They did predict an especially dry April, May, June and August for this year, but they didn't think that July wouldn't be quite so dry.

FALL & WINTER 1999 WEATHER PREDICTIONS:

NOVEMBER:

William Gray, one of the most prominent American hurricane forecasters, announced last week that a new era of intense hurricane activity is about to unfold. Likely to be hit more than ever, he said, will be the Caribbean islands, the East Coast of the United States and the Florida Peninsula. The last intense era of hurricane activity ended in the 1960s, Mr. Gray said, when Florida and the East Coast were not nearly so extensively developed.

The National Weather Service predicted unseasonably warm and dry weather this fall as a prelude to above-average precipitation in this La Nina winter. In Denver, Colorado, Thanksgiving tourists are calling Vail Ski Resort to see if they should bring their golf clubs instad of their skis, as the warm, dry weather has left ski resorts from California to Colorado with scant natural snow. Vail reports that this is the first time since 1983 that they've had the golf course open past Oct.31.

La Nina is expected to keep the Southern U.S. dry for the winter but blast the Northwest and Great Lakes with more precipitation than usual. They expect considerable month-to-month variation in temperature, rainfall and storminess in the central, northern and eastern states, which means days of warmer than normal temperatures followed by bouts of bitter cold. In the Southeastern areas plagued by drought last summer, the outlook is for normal to below-normal moisture in the coming months. The National Weather Service's Center for Environmental Predictions says it can now predict La Ninas and El Ninos and their expected climatic impacts on different regions with 70% to 80% accuracy a year before they occur. NASA reasearchers in Pasadena have issued a similar forecast.

Fewer U.S. Hurricanes Predicted For 2000. Three tropical storms and one full-blown hurricane will hit the south-eastern United States between June and November next year, according to British scientists. They forecast fewer storms for next year and said not as many would be hitting land.


Hard as this may be for people in South Florida to imagine in the wake of such a wet fall, weather forecasters are predicting a warmer, drier and more dangerous winter/spring fire season. The season could be worse than last year, but probably not as bad as the horrific summer of 1998 when the summer rains were eight weeks late, leading to a spate of lightning-ignited wildfires. Those fires leveled or seriously damaged more than 150 homes and businesses while scorching nearly 500,00 acres. More than 10,000 firefighters from 47 states battled the blazes. The price tag was more than $1 billion. ''Right now our biggest concern is North Florida ... where there is already a deficit of rainfall for the year,'' said Andy Devanas, chief meteorologist for the Florida Division of Emergency Management. South Florida should be somewhat better off, both Devanas and Florida Division of Forestry meteorologist Scott Goodrick predict. But it would not take much for South Florida to become as dry as it was last spring when smoke from huge fires in the Everglades cut visibility in cities as far away as Fort Lauderdale and Miami. ''We're going to be looking at a pretty rough time come next spring,'' Goodrick said.


OCTOBER :

The Pacific Ocean phenomenon called La Niña has reappeared, prompting forecasts for a wet winter across the Northwest and a dry one in the Southwest, NASA scientists said. The weather-altering pattern had appeared to all but vanish this summer. But a U.S.-French satellite monitoring sea-surface height and temperature earlier this month detected a pool of unusually cool water marked by lower-than-normal sea levels in the eastern North Pacific, and warm water in the western and mid-latitude Pacific.

She's baaaack: La Niña returns for winter