Hurricane forecaster and Professor Emeritus, Dr. William Gray, is predicting what he described as an ‘above average’ Hurricane Season in 2013.
Addressing the 2013 National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans, Dr. Gray said his prediction is based on favorable conditions in the tropics.
“The only thing I can see that can stop it is if an El Nino develops for this year, and we don’t think that will happen,” he said.
An average session calls for 12 named storms of which 6 will become Hurricanes with 3 Intense Hurricanes of Categories 3, 4 or 5.
Attending the conference from Dominica was Former National Disaster Coordinator, Cecil Shillingford, who made a presentation on “The Effects of Secondary Hazards on Dominica” focusing on the 2011 flooding as a result of Hurricane Ophelia, landslides with specific mention of the 2010 San Sauveur Disaster and Storm Surges of Hurricanes Lenny and Omar, 1999 and 2008 respectively.
He also participated on a panel which looked at Disaster Risk Reduction efforts in the Caribbean Region and Moderated a session which looked at Hurricane Planning in the Private Sector, Tools for Alert and Warning and Early Warning in Dutch St. Maarten.
Shillingford is a member of a small committee which organized the Tropical Islands Sessions at the National Hurricane Conference. That Committee was able to arrange for 10 presentations from the Caribbean Region. Funding for most of the Caribbean presenters and participants to the Conference was made possible through the United States Agency for International Development/ Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA).
The four-day conference, which ended last week, included over a hundred sessions in forecasting, emergency response, insurance issues, recovery, debris management, techniques in increasing public awareness and Tropical Island issues and was attended by nearly 1,500 participants from across hurricane prone areas.
