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2023 hurricane forecast: Busy Pacific, quieter Atlantic, due to El Niño

Kelsey Ellis, University of Tennessee and Nicholas Grondin, University of Tennessee

The 2023 hurricane forecast

The official 2023 hurricane season forecasts were just released. The Atlantic may see an average storm season this year. But a busier-than-normal season is forecast in the eastern Pacific, meaning heightened risks for Mexico and Hawaii.

A big reason is El Niño.

El Niño typically means trouble for the Pacific and a break for the Atlantic coast and Caribbean. But while this climate phenomenon is highly likely to form this year, it isn’t a certainty before hurricane season ramps up this summer. And that makes it harder to know what might happen.

It’s also important to remember that even in quiet years, a single storm can cause enormous destruction.

As climate scientists, we study how climate patterns related to the frequency and intensity of hurricanes – information that is used to develop seasonal forecasts. Here is a quick look at how El Niño affects storms and why it tends to cause opposite effects in two basins separated only by a narrow stretch of land.

The 2023 hurricane forecast and a tale of two basins

It’s helpful to start by visualizing where tropical storms develop in each ocean.

In the North Atlantic, tropical storms typically form over the warm waters off eastern Africa. As they move westward, they often hit Caribbean islands before making landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast and Eastern Seaboard, or they curve off into the Atlantic.

Those tropical storms and hurricanes have caused over a trillion dollars in damage in the U.S. since 1981. That damage is expected to continue to increase. The reasons are both because warming global temperatures fuel stronger storms and because more people are building homes and businesses in harm’s way.

In the eastern North Pacific, tropical storms tend to form closer to land, between Mexico and Clipperton Island off Central America. They typically move to the northwest before turning westward out to sea. And they sometimes inundate the Mexican coast known as the Mexican Riviera. Longer-tracked Pacific storms that move into the central Pacific can affect shipping and hit Hawaii, as Hurricane Lane did in 2018.

The Atlantic gets the most attention, largely because it gets more damage with more people and property in the way. However, the Pacific tends to get more storms, especially during El Niño years. It’s often a seesaw pattern, with a busy year in one basin and a quieter season in the other.

El Niño creates a seesaw pattern

That seesaw pattern is largely driven by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, which includes varying strengths of El Niño and its opposite, La Niña.

During El Niño, the trade winds that blow from east to west weaken. That allows warm ocean water to build up at the equator, west of South America. This causes a shift in the jet streams – strong upper-level winds – which affects rainfall and temperature patterns.

In the Atlantic Ocean, El Niño causes an area of low pressure in the upper atmosphere known as a trough and stronger upper-level winds. And that results in increased vertical wind shear, or a change in wind speed or direction with height in the atmosphere. Wind shear can tilt and stabilize storms, allowing fewer hurricanes to form.

Conversely, El Niño typically causes an upper-level ridge, or area of high pressure, and decreased vertical wind shear in the eastern North Pacific basin. In this region, El Niño often results in an active hurricane season.

La Niña is the opposite

La Niña – El Niño’s opposite, with cooler water in the tropical Pacific – reverses this pattern. The record 2020 and destructive 2021 Atlantic hurricane seasons were both during strong La Niña years.

On longer time scales, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, a fluctuation of North Atlantic sea surface temperatures, affects hurricane activity in cycles that span several decades. The AMO’s current warm phase, which began in 1995, has hosted seven of the 10 busiest Atlantic hurricane seasons. Hurricane activity often lessens in a cool phase of the AMO, during which the Atlantic is on average about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 Celsius) cooler.

Who faces the greatest risk in the Pacific?

El Niño also changes who is at risk in the Pacific.

During El Niño events, storms in the eastern North Pacific tend to form farther to the west. With these events, the environmental conditions in the western portion of the basin tend to become more conducive than normal to tropical cyclones. For example, they have reduced environmental vertical wind shear and warmer ocean temperatures. That places Hawaii and the central Pacific at greater risk from damaging storms than normal.

The highly destructive Hurricanes Manuel in 2013 and Willa in 2018 show the immense impact Pacific storms can have in the region. Both triggered widespread flooding and mudslides in Mexico. Together, they led to over 125 deaths. In Hawaii, Hurricane Iniki’s storm surge and winds in 1992 destroyed over 1,400 homes on Kauai and damaged thousands more.

El Niño years also increase the viability of storms affecting the southwestern U.S. In 1997, multiple storms affected California and Arizona. That includes some that moved into the region after landfall in Mexico. Famously, in 2014, rough surf and swells associated with Hurricane Marie caused over US$16 million in damage at the Port of Long Beach.

Why 2023 hurricane forecasts are so uncertain

Forecasting the 2023 hurricane seasons is proving to be challenging for another reason: The Atlantic has abnormally warm sea surface temperatures this year. Those warm temperatures can power hurricanes … if storms are able to form.

Will the warm waters of the Atlantic overcome the unfavorable conditions brought by the El Niño? We’ll soon know.

The eastern Pacific hurricane season started May 15, and the Atlantic season starts June 1, with both running through November 30.

In its 2023 Atlantic hurricane outlook released in late May, NOAA forecast 12 to 17 named storms, five to nine hurricanes and one to four major hurricanes. In the eastern Pacific, NOAA forecasts 14 to 20 named storms, seven to 11 hurricanes and four to eight major hurricanes. For the central Pacific, including Hawaii, NOAA’s forecast includes four to seven cyclones, also above or close to average.

Surprisingly, the Atlantic has already seen its first storm of the year. A storm in January was recently classified as a subtropical cyclone. This is rare. Our research shows the median date of the first named tropical cyclone is May 30 in the Pacific and June 20 in the Atlantic. Although Atlantic storms have been occurring, on average, earlier each year. We should expect the next named Atlantic and Pacific storms – Arlene and Adrian, respectively – in the coming weeks.

This article was updated May 25, 2023, with the central Pacific forecast.

Kelsey Ellis, Associate Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee and Nicholas Grondin, Recent PhD Graduate in Geography, University of Tennessee

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bottom line: The 2023 hurricane forecast is out! Due to El Niño, forecasters are calling for a busy Pacific basin and a quieter season in the Atlantic.

Read more: 2023 Atlantic hurricane outlook and list of names

2023 hurricane forecast: Get ready for a busy Pacific storm season, quieter Atlantic than recent years thanks to El Niño

Tropical storms and hurricanes have caused over a trillion dollars in damage in the US since 1981

The official 2023 hurricane season forecasts were just released, and while the Atlantic may see an average storm season this year, a busier-than-normal season is forecast in the eastern Pacific, meaning heightened risks for Mexico and Hawaii.

A big reason is El Niño.

El Niño typically means trouble for the Pacific and a break for the Atlantic coast and Caribbean. But while this climate phenomenon is highly likely to form this year, it isn’t a certainty before hurricane season ramps up this summer, and that makes it harder to know what might happen.

It’s also important to remember that even in quiet years, a single storm can cause enormous destruction.

As climate scientists, we study how climate patterns related to the frequency and intensity of hurricanes – information that is used to develop seasonal forecasts. Here is a quick look at how El Niño affects storms and why it tends to cause opposite effects in two basins separated only by a narrow stretch of land.

A tale of two basins

It’s helpful to start by visualizing where tropical storms develop in each ocean.

In the North Atlantic, tropical storms typically form over the warm waters off eastern Africa. As they move westward, they often hit Caribbean islands before making landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast and Eastern Seaboard, or they curve off into the Atlantic.

Those tropical storms and hurricanes have caused over a trillion dollars in damage in the U.S. since 1981. That damage is expected to continue to increase, both because warming global temperatures fuel stronger storms and because more people are building homes and businesses in harm’s way.

In the eastern North Pacific, tropical storms tend to form closer to land, between Mexico and Clipperton Island off Central America. They typically move to the northwest before turning westward out to sea, sometimes inundating the Mexican coast known as the Mexican Riviera. Longer-tracked Pacific storms that move into the central Pacific can affect shipping and hit Hawaii, as Hurricane Lane did in 2018.

While the Atlantic gets the most attention, largely because it gets more damage with more people and property in the way, the Pacific tends to get more storms, especially during El Niño years. It’s often a seesaw pattern, with a busy year in one basin and a quieter season in the other.

El Niño creates a seesaw pattern

That seesaw pattern is largely driven by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, which includes varying strengths of El Niño and its opposite, La Niña.

During El Niño, the trade winds that blow from east to west weaken, allowing warm ocean water to build up at the equator, west of South America. This causes a shift in the jet streams – strong upper-level winds – which affects rainfall and temperature patterns.

In the Atlantic Ocean, El Niño causes an area of low pressure in the upper atmosphere known as a trough and stronger upper-level winds, resulting in increased vertical wind shear – a change in wind speed or direction with height in the atmosphere. Wind shear can tilt and stabilize storms, allowing fewer hurricanes to form.

Conversely, El Niño typically causes an upper-level ridge, or area of high pressure, and decreased vertical wind shear in the eastern North Pacific basin, and often results in an active hurricane season.

La Niña – El Niño’s opposite, with cooler water in the tropical Pacific – reverses this pattern. The record 2020 and destructive 2021 Atlantic hurricane seasons were both during strong La Niña years.

On longer time scales, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, a fluctuation of North Atlantic sea surface temperatures, affects hurricane activity in cycles that span several decades. The AMO’s current warm phase, which began in 1995, has hosted seven of the 10 busiest Atlantic hurricane seasons. Hurricane activity often lessens in a cool phase of the AMO, during which the Atlantic is on average about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 Celsius) cooler.

Who faces the greatest risk in the Pacific?

El Niño also changes who is at risk in the Pacific.

During El Niño events, storms in the eastern North Pacific tend to form farther to the west. With these events, the environmental conditions in the western portion of the basin tend to become more conducive than normal to tropical cyclones, such as having reduced environmental vertical wind shear and warmer ocean temperatures. That places Hawaii and the central Pacific at greater risk from damaging storms than normal.

The highly destructive Hurricanes Manuel in 2013 and Willa in 2018 show the immense impact Pacific storms can have in the region. Both triggered widespread flooding and mudslides in Mexico, and together led to over 125 deaths. In Hawaii, Hurricane Iniki’s storm surge and winds in 1992 destroyed over 1,400 homes on Kauai and damaged thousands more.

El Niño years also increase the viability of storms affecting the southwestern U.S. In 1997, multiple storms affected California and Arizona, including some that moved into the region after landfall in Mexico. Famously, in 2014, rough surf and swells associated with Hurricane Marie caused over US$16 million in damage at the Port of Long Beach.

Why 2023 hurricane forecasts are so uncertain

Forecasting the 2023 hurricane seasons is proving to be challenging for another reason: The Atlantic has abnormally warm sea surface temperatures this year, and that can power hurricanes – if storms are able to form.

Will the warm waters of the Atlantic overcome the unfavorable conditions brought by the El Niño? We’ll soon know.

The eastern Pacific hurricane season started May 15, and the Atlantic season starts June 1, with both running through Nov. 30.

In its 2023 Atlantic hurricane outlook released in late May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast 12 to 17 named storms, five to nine hurricanes and one to four major hurricanes. In the eastern Pacific, NOAA forecasts 14 to 20 named storms, seven to 11 hurricanes and four to eight major hurricanes. For the central Pacific, including Hawaii, NOAA’s forecast includes four to seven cyclones, also above or close to average.

Surprisingly, the Atlantic has already seen its first storm of the year – a storm in January was recently classified as a subtropical cyclone. This is rare. Our research shows the median date of the first named tropical cyclone is May 30 in the Pacific and June 20 in the Atlantic, though Atlantic storms have been occurring, on average, earlier each year. We should expect the next named Atlantic and Pacific storms – Arlene and Adrian, respectively – in the coming weeks.

This article was updated May 25, 2023, with the central Pacific forecast.

Kelsey Ellis, Associate Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee and Nicholas Grondin, Recent PhD Graduate in Geography, University of Tennessee

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Scientists completed a vast evolutionary jigsaw puzzle in 4D—and they discovered that butterflies originated in America around 100 million years ago.

They determined that it was a group of “trendsetting” moths that started flying during the day rather than at night, taking advantage of nectar-rich flowers that had co-evolved with bees.

That single event led to the evolution of all butterflies, and now scientists have discovered where they first originated and which plants they relied on for food.

Researchers have known the precise timing of the event since 2019, when a major analysis of DNA discounted an earlier theory that pressure from bats prompted the evolution of butterflies following the extinction of dinosaurs.

Before reaching their conclusions, researchers from several countries had to create the world’s largest butterfly tree of life, assembled with DNA from more than 2,000 species representing all butterfly families.

Using the framework as a guide, the team traced the movements and feeding habits of butterflies over time in a four-dimensional puzzle that led back to North and Central America.

“It’s something I’ve wanted to do since visiting the American Museum of Natural History when I was a kid and seeing a picture of a butterfly phylogeny taped to a curator’s door,” lead author Doctor Akito Kawahara, curator of Lepidoptera at the Florida Museum of Natural History. “This was a childhood dream of mine.”

“It’s also the most difficult study I’ve ever been a part of, and it took a massive effort from people all over the world to complete.”

There are more than 19,000 butterfly species, and piecing together the 100 million-year history of the group required data about their modern distributions and host plants.

Before the study, there was no single place that researchers could go to access that type of data. To wit, many of the sources were books written by local experts, and not always in the same language.

“In many cases, the information we needed existed in field guides that hadn’t been digitized and were written in various languages.”

The team decided to make their own publicly available database by painstakingly translating and transferring the contents of books, museum collections, and isolated web pages into a single digital repository.

Underlying all the data were 11 rare butterfly fossils, without which the analysis would not have been possible.

Unlike other insects, butterflies are rarely preserved in the fossil record due to their paper-thin wings and threadlike, gossamer hairs.

The few that are can be used as calibration points on genetic trees, allowing researchers to record the timing of key evolutionary events.

The results show that some groups traveled over vast distances while others seem to have stayed in one place, remaining stationary while continents, mountains, and rivers moved around them.

Dr. Kawahara says butterflies first appeared somewhere in Central and western North America when North America was bisected by an expansive seaway that split the continent in two, while present-day Mexico was joined in a long arc with the United States, Canada, and Russia.

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North and South America hadn’t yet joined via the Isthmus of Panama, but butterflies had little difficulty crossing the strait between them.

“Despite the relatively close proximity of South America to Africa, butterflies took the long way around, moving into Asia across the Bering Land Bridge,” said Dr. Kawahara. “From there, they quickly covered ground, radiating into South East Asia, the Middle East, and the Horn of Africa.”

“They even made it to India, which was then an isolated island, separated by miles of open sea on all sides. Even more astonishing was their arrival in Australia, which remained sutured to Antarctica, the last combined remnant of the supercontinent Pangaea.”

Farther north, butterflies lingered on the edge of western Asia for potentially up to 45 million years before finally migrating into Europe.

“Europe doesn’t have many butterfly species compared to other parts of the world, and the ones it does have can often be found elsewhere. Many butterflies in Europe are also found in Siberia and Asia, for example.”

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By the time dinosaurs disappeared 66 million years ago, nearly all modern butterfly families had arrived on the scene, and each one seems to have had a special affinity for a specific group of plants. But there was one plant that stood out among them all.

“We looked at this association over an evolutionary timescale, and in pretty much every family of butterflies, bean plants came out to be the ancestral hosts. This was true in the ancestor of all butterflies as well.”

Bean plants have since increased their roster of pollinators to include bees, flies, hummingbirds, and mammals, while butterflies have similarly expanded their palate.

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Study co-author Professor Pamela Soltis, a Florida Museum curator, says the botanical partnerships that butterflies forged helped transform them from minor offshoots of moths to what is today one of the world’s largest groups of insects.

“The evolution of butterflies and flowering plants has been inexorably intertwined since the origin of the former, and the close relationship between them has resulted in remarkable diversification events in both lineages,” she said.

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