wrote in message
ups.com...
| US researchers have discovered a link between Atlantic hurricane
| activity and thick clouds of dust that periodically rise up from the
| Sahara Desert.
|
| At times of intense hurricane activity, dust clouds were scarce, but in
| years with stronger dust storms, fewer hurricanes swept across the
| Atlantic.
|
| More at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6038296.stm
|

And this is exactly what happened this year. According to the "blogs" on
WeatherUnderground from earlier in the Summer, clouds of Sahara dust blown
out into the Atlantic interfered with the development of tropical waves
leaving Africa and were partly responsible for the hurricane season being
below the originally predicted intensity. The dust reduces the heating of
the sea surface and also interferes with the temperature structure of the
atmosphere.

Another major reason for the low hurricane activity was higher wind shear
this season, which disrupted many of the storms before they had a chance to
become full-blown hurricanes. Most of the significant storms formed in a
period of a few weeks when windshear was less than normal for this summer.
The circulation pattern which produced this shear also helped those storms
which did develop to recurve out into the Atlantic before the reached the
continental USA.
--
- Yokel -
oo oo
OOO OOO
OO 0 OO
) ( I ) (
) ( /\ ) (

"Yokel" now posts via a spam-trap account.
Replace my alias with stevejudd to reply.