The nation’s largest U.S. oil company is forecasting that there will be six to nine tropical storms in the Atlantic this hurricane season, with three to six hurricanes and a 1-in-3 chance of a major hurricane landfall in the United States.
The prediction by the company’s chief financial officer, Jeffrey Silber, is “just a little more bearish than what the other guys had in it,” said Kristian Durr, a meteorologist at AccuWeather. But Mr. Durr noted that the most recent data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the American Meteorological Society show a U.S. landfall possible by Sept. 2, with Hurricane Florence blowing ashore a week later.
The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, according to the NOAA. The agency released its own projections last month, calling for seven to 10 tropical storms, including four to eight hurricanes, with one to three being major storms of Category 3 or higher.
The US is likely to see a few heavy rains next year, exacerbating the drought that has gripped millions of residents of Texas and Florida, reported The Wall Street Journal. The maps from the National Weather Service show widespread heavy rainfall for some of the very areas that have been hit by a stretch of dry weather, with up to 6 inches forecasted in the Houston area in particular.
The rain is predicted to begin to fall May 1, the same day National Weather Service meteorologists will name Tropical Storm Arlene, a matter that might spark attention among businesses, based on weather patterns.
The weather agency has warned of possible landslides in the mountains of the Colorado River as the water-absorbing forest grows warmer, according to USA Today. The low-pressure system, which could add even more snow to an already hard-hit area, includes parts of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, and California.
Nearly 400 deaths in the southern United States are attributed to a drought lasting more than a year, exacerbated by winter and spring floods. “Nobody saw this coming. You get dry, you get drought, you get storm events,” said climatologist Brad Rippey, to Reuters.
Read the full stories at The Wall Street Journal and Reuters.