The 2021 Atlantic Hurricane Season was a Wild One, so What’s in Store for 2022?

If you thought that there seemed to be a crazy number of hurricanes last year, you weren’t imagining things. The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season generated an extraordinary twenty-one named storms.  That’s the third highest on record!  Last year brought in seven hurricanes, four major hurricanes, and an Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) of 145. Those numbers compare with the averages from 1991 to 2020 for a season of 14.4 named storms, 7.2 hurricanes, 3.2 major hurricanes, and an ACE index of 123.

Of these, Hurricane Ida was declared the most damaging of the past season, which was projected to be in the top five of most costly tropical storms on record. Hurricane Ida made landfall at Port Fourchon, Louisiana, on August 29, 2021 as a category 4 storm with 150 mph winds. Ida moved up the U.S. East Coast and unleashed a devastating flood event over much of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Aon estimated Ida’s damages at $65 billion, making it the fifth-most expensive weather disaster in world history. NOAA’s estimate was $75 billion.

As documented by Brian McNoldy, a Senior Research Associate at University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, 2021 marked the sixth consecutive year with an ACE index above 129: “this has never happened before, not during the satellite era, not since records began in 1851. This sustained level of tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic is unprecedented even for four years, let alone six!”

Eight named storms made landfall in the contiguous U.S. in 2021, ranking as the third highest on record, behind 2020 (11) and 1916 (nine). The two-year period 2020-2021 had a truly astonishing 19 landfalls in the contiguous U.S., six times the average for a two-year period, and beating the previous two-year landfall record of 15, set in 2004-2005. From 1950 through 2020, the United States averaged just three landfalling tropical storms (with one a hurricane) per year.

So here we are, looking at 2020 with 11 storms hitting landfall, then 2021 with 8.  People are understandably nervous about what’s on the hurricane horizon for 2022.

Unfortunately, according to an early forecast from the Colorado State University (CSU) Tropical Meteorology Project, indicators are pointing to a higher-than-average hurricane season for the coming year as well.  Seasons with above-average activity typically have 13-16 named storms, 6-8 hurricanes and 2-3 major hurricanes, the researchers reported.This year’s storm period has a 40% chance that ocean temperatures in the North Atlantic will be above average, which can lead to a more intense hurricane season, according to CSU researchers.

Further, no El Nino will occur this year. When Pacific waters are warmed by El Nino there tend to be fewer hurricanes in the Atlantic, CSU research indicated. Additionally, El Nino generates increased vertical wind shear, which can further reduce hurricane activity in the Atlantic. But a stubborn La Nina is hanging around from last year, continuing at least into the first half of 2022, and that has the opposite effect, increasing both the number and severity of storms.

The CSU Tropical Meteorology Project will release its first formal 2022 hurricane season forecast on April 7, 2022.  All we can do for now is prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

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