2020 - Atlantic Hurricane Season: a Record-Breaking Season
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2020 - Atlantic Hurricane Season: A record-breaking season Pamela Probst Alessandro Annunziato Chiara Proietti Stefano Paris 2021 EUR 30635 EN This publication is a Technical report by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission’s science and knowledge service. It aims to provide evidence-based scientific support to the European policymaking process. The scientific output expressed does not imply a policy position of the European Commission. Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use that might be made of this publication. For information on the methodology and quality underlying the data used in this publication for which the source is neither Eurostat nor other Commission services, users should contact the referenced source. The designations employed and the presentation of material on the maps do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the European Union concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. EU Science Hub https://ec.europa.eu/jrc JRC123932 EUR 30635 EN PDF ISBN 978-92-76-32177-4 ISSN 1831-9424 doi:10.2760/00114 Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2021 © European Union, 2021 The reuse policy of the European Commission is implemented by the Commission Decision 2011/833/EU of 12 December 2011 on the reuse of Commission documents (OJ L 330, 14.12.2011, p. 39). Except otherwise noted, the reuse of this document is authorised under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This means that reuse is allowed provided appropriate credit is given and any changes are indicated. For any use or reproduction of photos or other material that is not owned by the EU, permission must be sought directly from the copyright holders. All content © European Union, 2021 How to cite this report: Probst, P., Annunziato, A., Proietti, C., Paris, S. 2020 – Atlantic Hurricane Season: A record-breaking season, EUR 30635 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2021, ISBN 978-92-76-32177-4, doi:10.2760/00114, JRC123932. Authors affiliations: Pamela Probst, European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra, Italy Alessandro Annunziato, European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra, Italy Chiara Proietti, European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra, Italy Stefano Paris, FINCONS service provider of European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Vimercate, Italy Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................................... 4 Abstract .................................................................................................................................................... 5 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 6 2 2020 Atlantic hurricane season .............................................................................................................. 9 2.1 Overview: Impact, frequency and GDACS alerts ............................................................................... 9 2.2 Comparisons with past events: 2005 & 2016-2020 .........................................................................13 2.3 Relevant past events ...................................................................................................................16 3 Hurricanes & COVID-19 .......................................................................................................................18 4 Hurricanes & La Niña ...........................................................................................................................19 4.1 ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation): El Niño and La Niña ...............................................................19 4.2 ENSO situation & forecast ............................................................................................................20 5 Hurricanes & Climate change ...............................................................................................................21 6 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................................22 References ..............................................................................................................................................23 List of abbreviations and definitions ..........................................................................................................26 List of figures ...........................................................................................................................................27 List of tables ............................................................................................................................................28 List of boxes .............................................................................................................................................29 Annexes ..................................................................................................................................................30 Annex 1. Detailed maps .......................................................................................................................30 Annex 2. GDACS TC Alerts ....................................................................................................................32 Annex 3. TCs Classification ...................................................................................................................33 3 Acknowledgements Daniele Brusa, Tom De Groeve, Luca Giustolisi, Jurgena Kamberaj, Marco Mastronunzio, Valerio Salvitti, Michele Tucci. 4 Abstract The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was extremely active, with 30 “named storms” (tropical storm or higher strength), including 13 hurricanes, which is more than double the long-term average of 12 named storms and 6 hurricanes. Several records were set (e.g. number of named storms) and the Greek alphabet was used for the second time on record (in the past only in 2005) to assign a name to the tropical storms and hurricanes. The Atlantic hurricane season (North Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico) officially starts on 1 June and ends on 30 November, with the highest activity from August to late October. However, in 2020, two tropical storms formed in May, before the start of the season, and the last month of the season was particularly active with two major hurricanes: ETA and IOTA. The 2020 season is the fifth consecutive Atlantic hurricane season above-average and several conditions contributed to make the 2020 record-breaking season possible, including La Niña which developed during the peak of the hurricane season and enhanced the hurricane activity in this basin. Every year the tropical cyclones (TCs) affect millions of people around the world, including several vulnerable islands of the Caribbean area and Central America, leaving a trail of destruction that requires the international assistance of the humanitarian community. In this report, the 2016-2020 Atlantic hurricane seasons and the extremely active 2005 season have been analysed, considering the impact on the affected areas and the international humanitarian support. Moreover, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic emergency influenced the TCs preparedness and response activities, creating a multi-risk scenario and increasing the vulnerability. Since 2011, the Global Disasters Alerts and Coordination System (GDACS) estimates the impact of all the TCs occurring worldwide and timely issued RED alerts for the most destructive events, like for ETA and IOTA in 2020, which devastated Central America. 5 1 Introduction The official hurricane season in the Atlantic Basin (North Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico) officially starts on 1 June and ends on 30 November1 and the highest activity is from mid-August to late October. On average, 12 “named storms” (tropical storms or higher strength, see Annex 3) occur each season, with an average of 6 becoming hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes2. The official Tropical Cyclone3 (TC) Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre (RSMC) of this basin is the RSMC Miami - NOAA National Hurricane Center (NOAA-NHC, https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/). The TCs over the period 2010-2020 of this basin can be found in Fig. 1, while more information in the previous JRC reports (see References) and on the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) websites4. The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season had: Tropical Storm Hurricane/ 6 Basin or stronger Typhoon/Cyclone ❏ 30 Named storms (Vmax ≥ 63 km/h) (Vmax≥63km/h) (Vmax≥119km/h) NW Pacific 26.0 16.5 ❏ 13 Hurricanes (Vmax ≥ 119 km/h) NE/Central Pacific 16.6 8.9 which is significantly above the normal activity. Atlantic 12.1 6.4 The official NOAA’s 2020 Atlantic hurricane Aus SW Pacific 9.9 5.2 season Outlooks, as well as the other seasonal SW Indian 9.3 5.0 forecasts of other agencies published before the Aus SE Indian 7.5 3.6 start of the season, correctly predicted this N Indian 4.8 1.5 extremely active season. Table 1 - Average TC number by basin (source: NOAA)5. In particular, the number of systems that reached at least tropical/subtropical storms strength in 2020 is above