Deadly hurricane season finally comes to a close
By Ryan Haas
Reporter-SKNVibes.com
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts-YESTERDAY (Nov. 30) was officially the final day of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, bringing to a close one of the deadliest and most active seasons since comprehensive records began being kept in 1944.
According to the United States’ hurricane tracking agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), “an average season has eleven named storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes”.
The 2008 season broke all of these numbers with sixteen named storms, eight hurricanes and five major hurricanes that reached Category 3 or greater, though these numbers fell within the range of the NOAA’s August predictions.
Gerry Bell, a forecaster in the NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, said that “this year’s hurricane season continues the current active hurricane era and is the tenth season to produce above-normal activity in the past 14 years”.
The damage from this year’s sixteen storms was quite high, causing over 800 casualties across the Caribbean and an estimated US $54 billion in structural damage, much of which was is in repeatedly hard hit nations like Cuba and Haiti. ~~Adz:Right~~
Not only was 2008 the first year that three major hurricanes made landfall in Cuba, but it was the first season on record to have a major hurricane in five consecutive months (July: Bertha, August: Gustav, September: Ike, October: Omar, November: Paloma).
In his release, Bell attributed the increased number of storms to a combination of oceanic and atmospheric conditions, remnants of La Niña winds and a one degree Fahrenheit increase in Atlantic water temperatures during the peak of the season.
The NOAA will now begin analyzing the data from the 2008 season as they prepare their May predictions for the 2009 season.
St. Kitts-Nevis was spared any injuries or loss of life during the 2008 season, but received minor storm surge damage along its Western coasts due to the nearby passage of the Category 3 Hurricane Omar in the early morning hours of October 16.
