How nature foiled the 2006 hurricane forecasts

The 2006 hurricane season proved again that predicting Mother Nature is a very precarious undertaking.

At the beginning of the season, all signs indicated that it would be more active than average: Sea surface temperature (SST) was above normal, vertical wind shear was low, and sea level pressure was reduced over the tropical Atlantic. Many forecasters believed that these features foreshadowed a continuation of the trend of nine preceding years of above-normal hurricane seasons. Given the recent warming tendency in the Atlantic and the prevailing favorable preseason conditions, there was no wonder that even by August 2006, forecasters were still calling for an above-normal frequency of tropical storms and hurricanes.