There's a 47 percent chance of a hurricane and a 20 percent chance of a major hurricane, Category 3 or greater, hitting the Louisiana coast this year, according to a seasonal forecast released Wednesday by Colorado State University meteorologists Phil Klotzbach and William Gray.
New Orleans has a 7 percent chance of one or more named storms making landfall, a 3.5 percent chance of a hurricane and 1.6 percent chance of an intense hurricane, according to the forecast.
The chances are slightly larger for Plaquemines Parish, which juts deeper into the Gulf of Mexico, with 10.6 percent for a named storm, 5.3 percent for a hurricane and 2.4 percent for a major hurricane.
The meteorologists also are sticking by their April forecast of a busier-than-average season, with 16 named storms, of which nine will be hurricanes and five will be major hurricanes.
Their prediction tracks the May 16 forecast of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center, which predicted 12 to 18 named storms, with six to 10 being hurricanes and three to six being major hurricanes.
Unlike NOAA, Klotzbach and Gray predict the chances of hurricanes hitting the shoreline, and this year say there's a 72 percent chance of at least one major hurricane hitting somewhere in the United States, a 48 percent chance of it hitting the East Coast, including the Florida peninsula, and a 47 percent of a hit on the Gulf Coast from Brownsville, Texas, to the Florida Panhandle.
Historically, Louisiana has a 30 percent chance of being hit by a hurricane and 12 percent chance of a major hurricane strike.
Hurricane predictions for other states and parishes are available at www.e-transit.org/hurricane/welcome.html.
Klotzbach and Gray rely on a variety of forecasting tools that measure various weather processes to come up with their predictions, including sea surface temperatures in the eastern Atlantic Ocean in April and May, which were warmer than average; upper-level winds in the south-central tropical Pacific Ocean that are associated with cooler water conditions called La Nina; future Pacific sea surface temperatures predicted by a climate model, which calls for continued La Nina conditions into September; and a pattern of low atmospheric pressure in the central Atlantic in May, all of which tend to promote conditions necessary for the creation and growth of tropical storms.
In last year's June forecast, the duo predicted 18 named storms, 10 hurricanes and five intense hurricanes. There actually were 19 named storms, 12 hurricanes and five intense hurricanes.
The forecast is available on the web at http://hurricane.atmos.colostate.edu/Forecasts/ .
Mark Schleifstein can be reached at email@example.com or 504.826.3327.