[00:00:00] Speaker A: The Journey Hometown Journal for coastal residents.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: If you live even within miles of the oceanfront, the beachfront, the bayfront, whatever it may be, you need to know whether or not you live in an evacuation zone.
[00:00:12] Speaker C: Welcome to the Hometown Journal. I'm Mark Edwards. June 1st marked the start of hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean. And today we're going to share what you need to know about being prepared. Whether you live on the Virginia, North Carolina coasts or inland.
Robbie Berg is the National Hurricane Center Warning Coordinator. Meteorologist Robbie welcome. The number of storms is predicted to be above normal this year.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: Yes. So NOAA is predicting a 60% chance of an above normal season, a 30% chance of near normal, and only a 10% chance of below normal. Essentially what that means is we're forecasting upwards of 13 to 19 named storms across the Atlantic. The average is about 14, so you can see that range is about near to above normal. The reason that we're expecting more activity than a normal season, a couple factors. One is that the ocean temperatures across the Atlantic remain rather warm.
And so storms like warm water when they form and to intensify.
So we think that because of that warm water, that will help these storms to form, which increases the numbers. Another factor is that we often look at what we call El Nino and La Nina. I'm sure many listeners have heard of those terms. It looks like we're kind of in this neutral state. We're kind of between those two setups. And so what that will end up doing is causing an environment of lower wind shear and again, storms like environments of low wind shear. So if we have low wind shear for most of the hurricane season, then we would expect more storms to form as well. So you look at those two factors, the wind shear and the sea surface temperatures across the Atlantic, that all kind of comes together to support the possibility of an above normal season.
[00:01:50] Speaker C: Is it still too early to predict or get an idea of when that first storm would be?
[00:01:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. I mean, the seasonal predictions are meant to be kind of a look at the season as a whole. What's the activity going to look like? But it's very hard to nail and to know exactly when that first storm may form. On average, we would tend to see the first named storm about June 20th. So we're getting close to that date. We don't see another storm in the next week or so.
It might be a later than normal start, but we just have to go one year ago. Last year, in 2024, we actually did start rather slow. We had a major hurricane in July Barrel. But we were pretty slow at the beginning of the season and everybody was thinking, gosh, where's the hurricane season? By the time we got to August, September and October, we were well aware it was hurricane season. It seemed like it was one storm after another. So you really can't focus too much on how slow the activity might be in June because it really doesn't say a whole lot about what we might expect in the next few.
[00:02:49] Speaker C: This is the Hometown Journal, and that is Robbie Berg with NOAA's National Hurricane Center. When we come back, we'll talk being prepared for when those storms hit.
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Now back to more of the Journey Hometown Journal.
[00:03:19] Speaker C: Mark Edwards, back with you as we discuss hurricane season and how you should prepare. Our guest is Robbie Berg, the National Hurricane center warning coordination meteorologist. Well, let's talk a little bit about preparedness. We have listeners in Virginia and North Carolina that are on the coast and then listeners that are inland as well. So let's start with those that live on the coast. What are some of the main things that they need to be aware of to be prepared for for hurricane, tropical storm?
[00:03:49] Speaker B: So the biggest thing for coastal residents, if you live even within miles of the oceanfront, the beachfront, the bayfront, whatever it may be, you need to know whether or not you live in an evacuation zone. The best way to do that is to visit the website of your local emergency management agency that would be your county, for example, that provides that information. Usually these sites give you an ability to put in your address and look up what zone you live in. And the reason that's important is because if a storm threatens that area, local officials will call evacuations to get people away from that risk of storm surge.
So we need people to know whether or not they live in a zone, and then if the officials call that zone for an evacuation, you know immediately whether or not you need to leave or not.
[00:04:35] Speaker C: What are some other things for those that live on the coast that they, they need to be aware of that can, that can help them prepare?
[00:04:44] Speaker B: Yeah, so it's, you know, one, knowing what your storm surge risk is. It's also knowing whether or not your house or whatever structure you, you are in, during a storm is able to withstand the winds. We don't typically evacuate for winds, but we still want people to be sure that they're staying in a, in a structure that can withstand those strong winds. If you don't live in that type of structure, then we do ask people to seek shelter elsewhere in the community or evacuate to other places if told to do so.
[00:05:12] Speaker C: Are you surprised that those people that have lived on the coast for a number of years and they've been through hurricanes before, that oftentimes they're still seemingly caught, not prepared and not ready?
[00:05:24] Speaker B: It actually doesn't surprise me too much. One of those reasons is that we really don't get hit by storms or even hurricanes that frequently. We know people get brushed by storms, but whether or not they actually saw the direct impacts of a storm can often happen every several years. And so either you forget whether or not you live in a zone, or those zones may have changed since the last hurricane season. So it's always a good idea for every year to check and update yourself on what your new zone may be and just making sure that you have everything in order should you get threatened this hurricane season by another storm.
[00:05:58] Speaker C: How is the preparation then different for our listeners that are more inland in Virginia and North Carolina as opposed to, to those that live on the coast?
[00:06:08] Speaker B: So on one hand, you don't have to worry about storm surge. If you live away from those zones, that's not a concern. But you can still see very significant water impacts from heavy rainfall and flooding. And you only have to look even further west last year in Hurricane Helene in the mountains of western North Carolina to see what the heavy rainfall can do. Obviously Helene was a very catastrophic storm. A lot of heavy rainfall in a mountainous area, and that caused catastrophic flooding for those areas. We've seen similar events even closer to the coast. It doesn't take necessarily the mountains to cause that type of flooding. So if you live inland, you may not be prone to storm surge, but you can be prone to the freshwater flooding and you need to be prepared for that. We don't have evacuation zones per se for flooding of that nature. But typically people understand or know whether or not they live in generally low lying areas near rivers and creeks that may potentially flood. So just having an understanding of that risk is always important as well. Now is a good time, while it's quiet, to start assembling some of your supplies. Even I now, when I go to the grocery store on a weekly basis, I often take and buy a few extra supplies, a few extra cans of soup, for example, just to make sure I have it in my pantry ready to go. Because when you do get threatened by a storm, the stress level goes up and you may get frantic and it may be hard to remember all the things you need to do. So even just taking those little steps now while it's quiet will really help you in the end if you get threatened this year.
[00:07:34] Speaker C: Our guest on the Hometown Journal is Robbie Berg with NOAA's National Hurricane center, and for more information on hurricane preparedness, check out their
[email protected] we'll be back with more in a minute.
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[00:08:19] Speaker C: Hometown Journal Mark Edwards back with you as we continue sharing what you need to know about being prepared for hurricane season. As the number of storms is predicted to be above normal this year, Our guest is Robby Berg with NOAA's National Hurricane Center.
Technology. It affects all of our lives today. And there have been so many advances as far as the National Hurricane center since you've been there. How have you seen the technology change and make your jobs better and allow you to be more accurate when it comes to letting the public know about the path of hurricanes and storms?
[00:08:58] Speaker B: Yeah, so we've seen a lot of great advances in hurricane analysis and forecasting. First off is that, you know, just even understanding what a storm is doing right now. We have better satellite technologies, we have new technologies on our aircraft, the hurricane hunters that fly into storms. And all of those new instruments and technologies help us to understand how strong is the storm, what's its structure look like, and that then feeds into the forecast. Once we make the forecast, we also now have better models that help us to predict where the storm is moving, how strong it might be. Those hazards, the storm surge hazard, the heavy rainfall and flooding, it helps us to predict where those hazards might occur, who might be at risk and who needs to prepare. So, you know, I've been at the Hurricane center for over 20 years now, and I've seen significant advances in the types of products and services we're able to provide to warn people ahead of.
[00:09:46] Speaker C: These storms is the hurricane center. Are they currently using or are they looking at anything involving AI that would aid in in those predictions?
[00:09:57] Speaker B: Yes, we are. In fact, you know, we've kind of been at the forefront of AI in some fashion. We've been using some models that use machine learning type algorithms and processes for years now.
And now that AI has become even more mainstream, we are seeing other tools and other models being put in front of us that we are assessing, we're looking at and trying to understand how helpful they might be in the forecast process. I think there's promise. We're seeing some good stuff coming out of some of those models. And so I'm hoping that the next few years we're going to see additional improvements and advances in predicting where a storm might move and then how strong it might get.
[00:10:34] Speaker C: Well, Robby, if people wanted to find out more about how the National Hurricane center tracks the storms or some of the information that's available on being prepared for a hurricane, what is the website? What is the contact information they should check out?
[00:10:50] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So first off, if you're interested in looking up information about active hurricanes and tropical storms across the Atlantic, you can go to our website which is www.hampions.gov. you can get all the information there. I'd also recommend just going to www.weather.gov and there you can actually find the forecast from your local National Weather Service forecast office which is located in Wakefield, Virginia. They will have all the information on your forecast in the next seven days, anything hurricane related and non hurricane related.
[00:11:22] Speaker C: Well, we hope the information that we provided today gives you a little more insight into hurricane season and how you should be prepared. We want to thank our guest, Robbie Berg with NOAA's National Hurricane Center. I'm Mark Edwards. Thank you for joining us for the Hometown Journal.
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