It's getting to be a large-sized hurricane. If the storm hits Texas, some of the rain and the squall conditions will affect other areas as well — and probably Louisiana. |
It's not something we predicted, and I'm not sure it's something we can anticipate way in advance. |
Most seasons we are going to get a hurricane hit the U.S. and probably more than half the time we will have a major hurricane hitting the U.S. as well. |
One thing is fairly certain -- it's going to be a major hurricane. |
That was kind of my first impression: Wow, this one is deepening as quick as Andrew, ... It's larger. |
That's not physically consistent with more intense storms, there's something fishy in that result. |
The global warming impacts are so tiny today that they can't be measured although they might be measured in 100 years. Compared to the natural swings of hurricane activity and compared to the huge population increase and infrastructure build-up along the coast, any global warming effects are likely to be so tiny that they're lost in the noise. |
The global warming thing is a long-term issue to be concerned about, how that's changing things. To me, I'd be much more worried about a Katrina right now versus something in 10 or 20 years. |
The La Nina effect tends to change in the late spring. That makes it tough to make an accurate assessment about what influence it will be having in the peak of hurricane season in August and September. |
The question is, is [the increase in intensity] real? Are we seeing a big increase the last 15 years or is it an artifact of the data? I'm afraid it's probably not a real change that's going on. |
We can explain it after the fact, but we can't forecast that very well, where the storms are going to form. |
With La Nina, you can expect not only more storms than average, but stronger storms, as well. |