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I'm sure you all have heard the discussion about storm cycles versus global warming trying to explain this year's activity. Here are some numbers I found: In 1887 we had 19 storms, in 1933 we had 21, and in 1990 we had 14. Normally one could expect to see between 5 and 11 storms per year. One year there was only one storm! However, starting in 1995, here are the number of storms by year: 19, 13, 8, 14, 12, 15, 15, 12, 16, 15, and 20 so far this year. I just counted the number of storms, not if they hit land.

I didn't try to log the average strength by year, but it sure seemed to my untrained eye that we are getting more stronger storms.

What is causing this increase?

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Well I think that you answered your own question...what is causing the increase is that we are in an active cycle.

There are many, many years since 1887 when a very large number of storms occured, and a very large active cycle in mid-century. Also since we did not have satellites or reliable ways of identifying fish spinners in the early part of the century, then don't compare apples and oranges in your numbers (if you're going to count storms that don't hit land, remember that the numbers from the earlier years will be missing storms that were not documented).

Now if you are seriously going to do an analysis, then don't make statements that are not verified by statistics, such as "to my untrained eye we are getting more stronger (sic) storms." If you do an analysis of all the data, you'll find that is not the case; there are many records of major hurricanes in previous years. Collective memory is short and fairly unreliable; just because the last two seasons have been busy doesn't mean that they represent a divergent statistic.

There is one thing that has changed dramatically and it is not hurricanes. It is the number of people who live on coastlines, and remember that this includes the northeast (strong hurricanes have hit there; if one hits there again this season or next, again, it will not be anything new).

--want to move these two posts to the other forum where I started a thread on this topic?--

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Katrina's Surge: http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/Katrinas_surge_contents.asp

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