User blog comment:Andrew444/Andrew444's predictions for 2013 Atlantic and Eastern Pacific activity/@comment-2239664-20121210172556/@comment-2239664-20121213153153

I suppose so. EPac has, in rescent years (excluding 2011, that was a once-in-a lifetime event) had many named storms but few hurricanes. 2009 had 20 named storms but only 8 hurricanes and 5 majors. 2008 EPac season had 16 storms, but only 7 hurricanes and 2 majors. 2010 and 2007 were amongst the least active seasons ever, at least in terms of ACE totals. 2011 AHS had 19 storms, but only 7 hurricanes and 3 majors. Having a high number of named storms yet most of them remaining weak has been the big story for the past 3 Atlantic seasons, so I suppose it's possible to have a lot of storms yet few hurricanes. And yes, I agree there is an increased chance of impacts in some seasons, but even given certain conditions expected before a season, there is no certainty in impact forecasting. I don't think any of us thought 2012 would be the second-costliest season in history, but look what happened. I was pretty fearful of 2010 and 2011, but most of the storms in those years missed the U.S. and Irene was merely a shadow of what it could've been. Unfortunately, I have to agree with your argument to an extent. As much as I want to think we will get a quiet season for the U.S, 2013 is the 8th consecutive year in which the U.S. has not seen an official U.S. landfalling major hurricane. That breaks the 1861-1868 streak for the longest U.S. major hurricane drought in history. It doesn't imply we've gotten lucky (Gustav, Ike, Irene, Isaac, Sandy, to a lesser extent Dolly and Humberto), but none of them were official major hurricanes at their landfalls. Many areas in the Atlantic haven't had a wake-up call in a while. While NYC and Atlantic City NJ learned their lesson after Sandy this year, and New Orleans got a reminder from Isaac, some cities are still way overdue. Miami hasn't had any significant hurricane since Andrew in 1992, and the population and property values of Miami could cost more than 200 billion dollars/<1,000 deaths from a category 5 direct hit on the city today. Tampa hasn't had a significant hurricane hit since 1921, and they're more vulnerable than they are. JeffMasters said in a rescent blog post that a category 4/5 direct hit on Tampa would do over 250 billion in damage today. Earlier this year, Hong Kong very nearly suffered a doomsday fate from Typhoon Vicente, which exploded to a 140 mph category 4 from a minimal tropical storm in as little as 9 hours, yet Vicente missed the heart of the city by about 50 miles to the west. There are so many worst-case scenarios that are waiting to happen and one of them is gonna happen someday. It happened to New York City and Atlantic City from Sandy this year, and one thing I can say for sure is it will happen again somewhere else. The question is, where and when.