I'm not a hurricane "expert" and I didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn last night. But long ago I was Associate Technical Director of the AN/AMQ15 Air Weather Reconnaissance System developed for the U.S. Weather Bureau (now NOAA). Among other things, we were charged with developing a data base of global weather patterns. So I did learn how to read and interpret scientific reports produced by real weather experts. The table that Jim Clausen referenced from USA Today showing the likelihood of various cities being hit by hurricanes is interesting but it doesn't quite show what he claims it does. While it is true that there is a decreasing probability of hurricane landfall the further north you go, the relationship is much smaller than you might expect. Statistical analysis shows that latitude accounts for only 30% of the variability in landfall probability. The remaining 70% must be attributed to other variables. The table omits such factors as the size of the area named, weather conditions in other parts of the world, and, most important, the angle of impact on the coastline. Finally, the geography of the impact area has the greatest influence on the damage caused by the hurricane - and, of course on the subsequent insurance costs. For example, according to the USA Today table, Miami has a 26.3 probability of being hit by a hurricane while Nantucket has a 12.5 probability. But Miami/Dade County has a land area of 1,946 square miles while tiny Nantucket has a total area of 48 square miles. Thus any square mile of Nantucket is nineteen times more likely to be hit by a hurricane than any square mile of Miami. An absurd conclusion but you get my point. For reasons not fully understood, weather in other parts of the world, thousands of miles removed from the US Atlantic coast, have a profound impact on the number and path of hurricanes. Storms in the African Sahara create the vortices that serve as the nucleus of hurricanes. Given the right water temperature conditions, the more storms, the more hurricanes. The frequency of hurricane landfalls along the East Coast is found to be influenced by changes in Pacific Coast water temperatures in the El Nino area. The hurricane season that occurs before a La NiC1a winter cold water event is the most likely to see a landfalling hurricane along the East Coast north of Florida. In Florida, there is no difference observed in the frequency of hurricane landfalls between cold and neutral events. Tracks of landfalling hurricanes indicate that East Coast landfalling storms tend to form in the central Atlantic and curve northward just off the Leeward Islands while Florida landfalling storms are more likely to form further west. There are fewer storms in the central Atlantic, where East Coast landfalling hurricanes tend to form during neutral years than during cold years. It is possible that the subtropical high is more elongated during neutral years, blocking hurricanes from hitting the East Coast and causing them to track further south towards Florida. Also, stronger easterlies close to the equator during neutral years may be steering storms on a more zonal path, keeping them at lower latitudes and preventing them from reaching the East Coast. It is difficult to imagine that water temperatures off the coast of Baja California have the ability to influence hurricanes to take the southernmost "Hurricane Alley" over Florida and into the Gulf or the northernmost "Hurricane Alley" up the Atlantic shoreline, but that seems to be the case. Further, the angle of impact of the hurricane is critical. Damaging winds from a hurricane extend out about 50 miles from the eye. The steering effect of the trade winds causes most hurricanes that impact Florida to make landfall at nearly a right angle to the coast. This causes a swath of considerable damage over a relatively small area. The lack of such steering winds further north causes storms to recurve and follow the coastline just offshore affecting much larger areas with hurricane force winds. The USA Today table shows the place of landfall but not the total area subject to hurricane conditions. Cape Hatteras has a landfall probability of 21.3, not because of a magic attraction for hurricanes but because it sticks out from the general northeast direction of the Atlantic coast and picks up storms paralleling the shore. Unfortunately the ICW also parallels the shoreline so that the hurricanes that miss the Florida coast are the ones to be feared by Great Loopers. The glancing impact of the 1938 hurricane that reshaped the Long Island coastline was just such a storm. East coast hurricanes are normally caught up in the jet stream, so they move up the coast at great speeds - much faster than hurricanes that impact the southern U.S. In fact, the 1938 hurricane moved at forward speeds in excess of 60 mph. To this day the Long Island Express holds the forward speed record for any Atlantic hurricane. Most areas of the Atlantic coast can suffer significant hurricane "events." A statistical model, developed by William M. Gray, professor of atmospheric sciences at Colorado State, and used by NOAA, divides the Gulf and Atlantic coastlines from Brownsville, Texas to Eastport, Maine into 11 major segments and predicts landfall probabilities. The coast is further divided into 100 kilometer (62 mile) sections and a landfall probability is assigned to each. For example, Gray said, Miami faces a 3.3% probability that an intense hurricane (with winds of 111 m.p.h. or higher) will come ashore annually in the 100-kilometer segment in which it lies. Probabilities for other major cities are: New Orleans, 2.4 percent; Houston, 2.5 percent; Charleston, 1.6 percent; and New York City, 0.9%. Gray's new analysis reveals that some areas of the U.S. coast never have experienced landfall by an intense hurricane (one with sustained winds of 111 m.p.h. or above) this century, while other regions have been struck repeatedly. Since 1900, 14 intense storms have hit the Florida peninsula from south of Naples through the Keys and up the East coast to Fort Pierce. This century, 11 intense storms have come ashore from the Georgia-South Carolina state line north to Cape Hatteras, 18 along the Lafayette,LA-to-Panama City Beach coast and six between New York City and Cape Cod. However, not one intense hurricane has struck between Fort Pierce and the Georgia-South Carolina border this century, nor has one made landfall between Cape Hatteras to just west of New York City. "The reason you don't have storms landfalling there is because there are no trade winds coming in from the East at that point, and storms typically 'recurve' and parallel the coast in these areas," Gray said. "The steering currents tend to be more from the South in that area. Further, Cape Hatteras tends to intercept the storms moving up the coast and shields the areas just north." "But South Florida gets the trade winds blowing in from the East." Prevailing winds and other climate factors also help protect a coastal span that straddles the Texas-Louisiana border and areas extending East and southeast from near Tallahassee on Florida's Gulf Coast and from Cape Cod to the Canadian border, none of which has experienced an intense landfalling hurricane this century. Lesser storms are more widely distributed. "If you include lesser storms, you do fill in the map of the coast," Gray said. "And tropical storms come in all over the place. But this is a statistical model, and these predictions are general. The major damaging winds don't cover a very big area, no more than 100 miles or so of coastline. Really intense winds cover even less, say 50 miles. Even in an active year, the probability of being hit by an intense storm is really low." Based on the historical data and the "Best Track" studies of the National Hurricane Center, the statistical probabilities of major urban areas being hit by a hurricane are: New York City, NY - landfall every 9.8 years on average Wilmington, NC - landfall every 3.9 years on average Miami, FL - landfall every 2.6 years on average New Orleans, LA - landfall every 4.3 years on average Galveston, TX - landfall every 3.2 years on average These probabilities are fairly uniform compared to the 6 to 1 frequency of hurricanes experienced on a year to year basis. Residents of the New York/New Jersey area hit by The Storm of the Century or those of the New England area hit by The Perfect Storm might say "Who needs a hurricane?" Finally the geography of the landfall area is critical to the damage caused by the storm. New Orleans is at particular risk because substantial parts of the city are below sea level and any storm which breaches the levees would cause massive flooding. Many of the low lying Atlantic barrier island communities have limited evacuation routes. Experts now believe that after Miami and New Orleans, New York City is considered the third most dangerous major city for the next hurricane disaster. According to a 1990 study by the US Army Corps of Engineers, the city has some unique and potentially lethal features. New York's major bridges such as the Verrazano Narrows and the George Washington are so high that they would experience hurricane force winds well before those winds were felt at sea-level locations. Therefore, these escape routes would have to be closed well before ground-level bridges (Time, 1998). The two ferry services across the Long Island Sound would also be shut down 6-12 hours before the storm surge invaded the waters around Long Island, further decreasing the potential for evacuation. A storm surge prediction program used by forecasters called SLOSH (Sea, Lake, and Overland Surge from Hurricanes) has predicted that in a category 4 hurricane, John F. Kennedy International Airport would be under 20 feet of water and sea water would pour through the Holland and Brooklyn-Battery tunnels and into the city's subways throughout lower Manhattan. The report did not estimate casualties, but did state that storms "that would present low to moderate hazards in other regions of the country could result in heavy loss of life" in the New York City area. A key word when addressing landfalls is exposure (Pielke et al, 1997). Exposure is a function of the three Pbs: population, property, and preparedness. The population of an area at risk affects how many people will be directly impacted and how many people need to be evacuated. Property refers to how many buildings, airplanes, ships, and cars could potentially be destroyed when the hurricane makes landfall. Finally, preparedness is basically how well the at-risk communities are prepared to handle a landfall (adequate building codes, construction supplies, hygiene/emergency materials, and a robust evacuation plan). Three links make up the Chain of Risk Reduction: more accurate forecasts, effective emergency management, and public education. Each of these depends on each other completelyb& if one fails, the other two fail. For example, if forecasts are 100% accurate and emergency management personnel are aware of the threat and issue timely warnings, but the public either never receives the warnings or ignores them, the first two steps were futile. Likewise with a weak link anywhere else in the chain. Scientists, emergency personnel, and the public must work together to make coastal communities a safer place to live. Landsea (1999) questions whether the nationbs risk is matched by its response; unfortunately, the only way to answer that is to experience an intense hurricane landfall on a populated area. Anyone wishing to explore the Wonderful World of Hurricanes further might consider the following reference sources. BTFFDR (Bipartisan Task Force on Funding Disaster Relief), 1995: Federal Disaster Assistance: Report of the Senate Task Force on Funding Disaster Relief, 104-4. GPO, Washington, D.C. Gray, W.M., 1998: Forecast Probability of U.S. Hurricane Landfall for 1998. Colorado State University. Gray, W.M., J.D. Sheaffer, and C.W. Landsea: Climate Trends Associated with Multi-Decadal Variability of Atlantic Hurricane Activity, unpublished. Hebert, P.J., J.D. Jarrell, and M. Mayfield, 1996: The Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense United States Hurricanes of this Century. NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS TPC-1, National Hurricane Center, Miami, FL. Landsea, C.W., N. Nicholls, W.M. Gray, and L. Avila, 1996: Downward Trends in the Frequency of Intense Atlantic Hurricanes During the Past Five Decades. Geophysical Research Letters, 23, 1697-1700. Landsea, C.W., 1993: A Climatology of Intense Atlantic Hurricanes. Monthly Weather Review, 121, 1703-1713. Landsea, C.W., R.A. Pielke, Jr., A.M. Mestas-NuC1ez, and J.A. Knaff, 1999: Atlantic Basin Hurricanes: Indices of Climatic Changes. Climatic Changes, 42, 89-129. Pielke, R.A., Jr., and R.A. Pileke, Sr., 1997: Hurricanes: Their Nature and Impacts on Society. John Wiley, 279pp. Pielke, R.A. Jr., and C.W. Landsea, 1998: Normalized Hurricane Damages in the United States: 1925-95. Weather and Forecasting, 13, 621-631. Simpson, R.H., and M.B. Lawrence, 1971: Atlantic Hurricane Frequencies Along the U.S. Coastline. NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS SR-58. NWS, Silver Springs, MD. Simpson, R.H., 1974: The Hurricane Disaster-Potential Scale. Weatherwise, 27. 169 & 186. Larry Z