Hurricane Jeanne, with 105-mph winds, now blamed for 2,000 deaths in Haiti while still only a tropical storm last weekend, is shown approaching the U.S. East Coast. (This photo and photo on home page courtesy of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

The U.S. hurricane forecast for the next 10 to 40 years looks bad. Hurricane researchers predict with growing confidence that we are in for a long period of heavy weather in the next generation.

“I really wish it was fantasy, but the signal [storm activity] is so large and very robust. We are talking about overall twice the amount of activity and two and a half times the number of major hurricanes,” says Stanley B. Goldenberg, a meteorologist with the hurricane research division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Miami. Gold­enberg was himself trapped with his family in a disintegrating mobile home during Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and he says he takes no pleasure in spreading the bad news.

Goldenberg is also co-author of a landmark 2001 paper that tied historic swings of Atlantic Ocean hurricane activity to variations in sea surface temperatures and other cyclical climatic factors. Sea surface temperatures in hurricane spawning grounds are rising, as they have before, in one of the Earth's mysterious multi-decade climatic oscillations. "The sea surface temperature is the driving mechanism. It doesn’t take much to produce a tremendous difference in hurricane activity," Goldenberg says.

Climatic patterns have aligned with patterns seen during periods over the last century when the number of major hurricanes striking the U.S. mainland was sharply higher than at other times. Residents of the eastern U.S. are mostly concerned with the number, strength and duration of Atlantic hurricanes that hit the mainland. Even a very active hurricane season can pass without raising much public alarm, as long as no big storms come ashore.

Goldenberg calls 1995, the first year of the new cycle, "horrendous" in terms of storm activity, but the hurricanes stayed out to sea. If the steering currents had directed them a few hundred miles to the west, the impact would have been extreme. "People have to pay attention to where they are and what the hurricane danger is," Goldenberg says. "What if Ivan had nudged 20 miles west and Mobile got the worst of it, or if it had come in between Mobile and New Orleans and made a one-two punch? If Andrew had been 20 miles north it would have hit the infrastructure of Miami. These storms are coming and there is potential for major, major disaster."

Researchers cannot yet predict landfall locations or the strength storms will have at the hour they hit with anything like precision. Witness the erratic calls during the current season, which saw storms unexpectedly strengthening or veering dramatically as they came ashore and then following unanticipated tracks inland, even back out to sea to regenerate and strike again.

(This photo and top courtesy of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

By studying an array of influencing factors from across half the globe, scientists are getting adept at predicting, many months ahead, the aggregate intensity of storm activity across the Atlantic basin in a given season. Now they see that those activity predictions, and the patterns upon which they are based, match well with cycles of rising and falling hurricane activity that stretch back to the 1870s. Since 1995 those influences have been lining up to match conditions between 1926 and 1970, when the mainland was barraged by frequent Category 3 hurricanes—with sustained 111 mph winds—and stronger storms.

The period between 1970 and 1994, when coastal construction and residential development of the Southeast boomed, by contrast, coincided with a cycle of low activity. There are breaks in the pattern for individual years, such as Hurricane Andrew's strike in 1992, but the average across decades show pronounced, and it appears, predictable swings.

Goldenberg says if all records of hurricane season activity are considered and a normal season is rated at 100%, taking into account storm frequency, strength and duration, the activity predicted for this season would rate 165%. During the period 1971 to 1974, only five years had activity that would have ranked above 100%. He called anything over 150% "hyperactive."

Goldenberg notes a NOAA Webpage with a low-budget but effective design for plywood storm shutters: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/shutters/