A Look Back at The 2010 Hurricane Season

This Atlantic hurricane season was marked by intense storm activity which however resulted in little disruption across the United States. While the season spawned 12 hurricanes, none hit land on U.S. shores. Latin America was not so lucky, especially Mexico which was rocked by Hurricane Karl. We in the U.S. have the position of the jet stream this year to thank for our good fortune, as it diverted many of the storms back to sea.

Heading into May the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center (CPC) projected a 70% chance that the season would produce between 8 to 14 hurricanes and emphasized their leaning towards the larger end of the spectrum based on record warmth for surface water temperatures and the presence of La Nina. In light of their recent track record of incorrectly predicting the last three out four years, this year's projection seemed like a stretch. Especially when you consider that prior to this year on three times in the past forty years had the number of hurricanes reached double digits. Thus, we must give credit to the NOAA forecasters for accurately predicting that this year would be one of the most active hurricane seasons on record.