WP - William Gray's Hurricane Predictions Not Off By This Much In Years [View All]

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MIAMI, Nov. 17 -- The noted hurricane-forecasting team led by William Gray at Colorado State University has not missed by this much in a long time.

Before this year's Atlantic hurricane season started, Gray and his protege, Philip Klotzbach, predicted that it would be well above average. Instead, it has been slightly below average as the Nov. 30 end of the season draws near -- and a mere whimper compared with the destruction caused by monster hurricanes such as Katrina, Rita and Wilma in 2005.

In a sort of mea culpa by the forecasting team Friday, Gray and Klotzbach said that the late development of a hurricane-suppressing El Niño phenomenon, and unusually dry conditions over the Atlantic, "complicated" their forecast. It was the first time in eight years that they had failed to predict accurately whether a season would be busier than average, they said.

"A variety of factors interact with each other to cause year-to-year and month-to-month hurricane variability," Klotzbach said in the end-of-season report. "It is impossible to understand how all these processes interact with each other to 100 percent certainty."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/17/AR2006111701639.html