Biden tells America to brace for a ‘more extreme’ hurricane season amid worrying loop current

US President Joe Biden warned that the country will see “another tough hurricane season” in 202.

His remarks echo researchers who are forecasting an above-average season that could see at least 19 named storms with four of them amounting to Category 3 or higher hurricanes.

On Wednesday, a University of Miami expert warned this year’s ‘loop current’ pattern is suggesting catastrophic storms on a par with Hurricane Katrina.

“We know hurricanes are coming our way. They grow more extreme every season,” the US president said ahead of a scheduled briefing with top officials, including Deanne Criswell, the administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Marcia Fudge, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

The president delivered his cautions to “pay attention to hurricane warnings and follow the guidance of your local authorities” while visiting a hangar at Joint Base Andrews where he was provided a tour of the aircrafts that will be used to fly through and track data on the developing storms throughout the 2022 season.

“It is really amazing what you all do to protect us,” Mr Biden said while viewing the facilities.

The commander-in-chief’s message that Americans along the coast should prepare to batten down the hatches and heed to local weather alerts arrives after forecasters from the University of Colorado similarly warned of an above-average season, predicting that there could be four major hurricanes with sustained winds of at least 178km/h and 19 with winds reaching 69km/h.

The university’s Tropical Meteorology Project reported during their April forecast that the factors driving this busy season are two pronged.

First, they note, there is an absence of an El Nino weather pattern this year. When present, the high winds that sweep across the southern US have been documented to help decrease tropical cyclone activity.

The second factor driving what will be the seventh straight year with an above-average hurricane season is the climate crisis, or more specifically, the higher-than-average sea temperatures throughout the Atlantic Ocean.

Hurricanes become larger and more powerful as they begin to form over warmer waters. And this occurrence, largely thanks to human activities, has unfortunately become the norm as the world’s oceans have recorded hotter than ever temperatures, breaking records for the sixth year in a row. 

An average season according to the university Meteorology Project docks in at 14 named storms, with seven hurricanes and three of them being major ones.

These latest predictions, however, follow the recent trend of each year passing that average, as last season, researchers from CSU predicted 17 named storms and four major hurricanes and ended up with the third most active season with 21 named storms and seven hurricanes.

Some of the most active years on record have occurred in the last two decades, with 2020 taking the unprecedented title of the busiest year on record with 31 tropical or subtropical storms with all but one of them becoming a named storm.

The 2020 season, which forced forecasters to dip into the Greek alphabet of names after they ran out of assigned names in September – two months before the season wrapped – beat out the 2005 season, who previously held the record with 28 named storms.