Hurricane center chief focusing on water hazards

National Hurricane Center Director Rick Knabb talks on Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale about the lessons learned from Superstorm Sandy and expectations for the Atlantic storm season that begins June 1. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)

Published: Tuesday, May 7, 2013 at 2:12 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, May 7, 2013 at 3:13 p.m.

FORT LAUDERDALE — Last year's hurricane season drove home some big lessons, the nation's chief hurricane forecaster said Tuesday: Storm surge and flooding are dangerous and difficult to predict, and sometimes it's even harder to communicate that sense of urgency to the public.

It wasn't just high winds that posed a threat and caused damage, said National Hurricane Center Director Rick Knabb, who joined Florida's emergency managers in Fort Lauderdale at the annual Governor's Hurricane Conference.

"2012 was all about water, water, water. Debby, Isaac, Sandy," Knabb said. "It was storm surge from the ocean, it was inland flooding, it was river flooding."





The hurricane center said it would change the way it warns people about tropical storms that become something else, after some critics suggested that Northeast residents underestimated Sandy's danger because forecasters stopped issuing hurricane warnings when the storm merged with two cold-weather systems and lost its tropical characteristics.

Now the hurricane center will continue to put out warnings and advisories if a storm threatens people and land, even if it's no longer called a hurricane or tropical storm.


Forecasters have significantly improved their ability to predict a storm's path. It's still difficult to know a day or two in advance how big that storm could be or whether it will rapidly intensify. Predicting its storm surge poses additional challenges.

"It's very difficult to forecast exactly where the storm surge is going to be the greatest, how far inland it's going to go and how deep the water is going to get above ground," Knabb said.

Communicating the danger also remains challenging, because many people don't know whether they live in storm surge evacuation zones, and then some residents don't see the risk until it's almost too late, Knabb said.

"It is human nature to not want to believe that something that has a small chance of happening that could be really bad is actually going to happen," he said.

That's why Knabb and other emergency managers urge residents to check insurance policies, make evacuation plans and buy emergency supplies well before there's any hurricane threat.

The six-month Atlantic storm season begins June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center is expected to release its hurricane season outlook later this month.




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