hurricane season officially begins on June 1st and the 2024 cycle is expected to be abnormally busy according to NOAA that's the national oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration the Outlook is predicting up to 13 hurricanes and as many as 25 named storms that's the most aggressive May Outlook ever issued by the government agency but experts will tell you A busy year shouldn't come as a surprise an expected linia will set the stage for storm formation while climate change has caused ocean temperatures to soar meaning more fuel for storms to grow many of these storms may never make landfall but that shouldn't change how we think about preparedness Matt Rosencrans is the lead hurricane seasonal forecaster for NOAA and joins me to explain why Matt Rosencrans thanks so much for coming on the show so when we get a report like this an Outlook from NOAA and we see that there's going to be a busy year how should we consume that information um because it it feels like a big number but we know that not all of these storms will necessarily happen yeah so we should take this Outlook as a chance to prepare now for the season as if a storm is going to come to your area and impact you right is there going to be a storm that comes to the New Jersey area when we talk about the factors that are contributing to this is it largely linia is it largely what's happening in the south in the Gulf or what can you point to and what is NOAA pointing to um for making this more aggressive I'll use the term uh Outlook than we've seen in the past so we look to the Sea surface temperatures deep in the tropical Atlantic where all these storms form and we do look at the la nina conditions we also look at the state and predictions for the West African monsoon um and then any other small other small factors such as wind patterns um that kind come out of kind of the Northwest and Canada area that can also have a small impact and so we run the numbers on all those and then when it comes to an area like New Jersey like the Northeast where we're not typically known for the hurricane Seasons that we've seen elsewhere what should be considered and and what is considered so flooding is a huge concern uh given sea level rise plus the asro intensity of Storms and much of New Jersey and New York metro area is is low-lying areas so flooding is a huge concern so take the time to prepare now in case you have to evacuate yeah I'm thinking about you know the remnants of Ida for our area which we didn't get a full tropical storm uh and yet we had deaths widespread destruction not just here but also just across the river in Manhattan so do we look too much at how these hurricanes are categorized I'm thinking about the wind as opposed to as you said the rain events itself the water that causes a lot of this damage yeah you have to look at the full spectrum of threats from these storms uh if you're in a low-lying area flooding is maybe your concern if you're a little bit further west and you're in a little bit of a higher terrain then those winds can really become your concern taking down trees and power lines um National Weather Service will put out the watches and warnings as appropriate so please respond to those so don't just look at hey we're predicting a category one a category three look at what the rainfall totals potentially may be and and what would that mean for your area and if you're in a low-lying area I don't want to put words in your mouth but it sounds like that's something to take into consideration largely absolutely even a tropical storm doesn't even have a category number can drop tremendous amounts of rainfall lead to flooding and destruction and you know really disrupt lives so just be prepared and take heat to those watches and warnings that come out none of this should come as as a surprise though yeah I mean given where we're headed with sea level rise with changes in climate um so should we take it a little bit as a grain of salt that we expect to see higher numbers when these outlooks are distributed and published so the numbers of storms in the Atlantic are not there's not necessarily a great link on those to the climate change the climate change is more related to the amount of rainfall that coastal flooding and then that pushes into the rivers I'm think like raron River New Jersey right it's pretty low lying in there especially around like Newark Airport there's a lot of stuff there in a lot of low-lying area so those are the more more intense factors related to not necess the numbers Matt Rosencrans is the lead hurricane seasonal forecaster for NOAA Matt thanks so much good talk to you [Music]