Just 3 weeks to go until the Atlantic Hurricane Season officially starts on June 1st and Emergency Management teams are working to add Social Distancing policies to their natural disaster plans. Florida’s Hurricane Preparedness Week was held last week. What did we learn?

1 | Interesting Names for 2020

Humor can help take the seriousness out of a situation and relieve tension. Yet the names picked for the 2020 Season may cause more jokes than most meteorologists want to sustain. Yes, the same jokes are going to get very old, fast this year. Just don’t underestimate a tropical cyclone approaching your area or the joke could be on you if you’re not prepared.

2 | Above-Normal Season Predicted & *UPDATED*

It’s 2020 and we haven’t caught a break yet. An Above-Normal Atlantic Hurricane Season has been predicted by a majority of public and private hurricane prediction teams thus far…

UPDATE: The NOAA National Hurricane Center has updated their 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season outlook to an “Extremely Active 19-25 named storms (winds of 39 mph or greater), of which 7-11 will become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or greater), including 3-6 major hurricanes (winds of 111 mph or greater). This update covers the entire six-month hurricane season, which ends Nov. 30, and includes the nine named storms to date (NOAA).”

3 | National Hurricane Center Forecast Updates

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) will include additional forecast products that were previously and still experimental:

• Potential Storm Surge map will be among graphical products issued for 2020 Hurricane Season and into the future.
• New local time zones will be used for tropical systems in the far eastern Atlantic Ocean.

• Cone of Uncertainty for the Atlantic basin will not decrease in size. The NHC stated it’s models and prediction accuracy probability have reached their optimum strength and decreasing the cone would not account for sudden wobbles in a storm’s path. For the Pacific basin, the Cone of Uncertainty will expand at 36-72hrs and contract for 120hr estimated. The size of the Cone is set for 2/3rds of historical forecast error tracks over the prior 5 years would be accounted.
• 60-hour forecast information will be issued for the center of rotation included in 2020 forecasts and onward.

To learn more and read the full document, go to https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/NHC_new_products_services_2020.pdf

4 | Stock Up Now Rather Than Before the Storm

If the current pandemic hasn’t taught us anything, it’s to always have a stockpile of items you typically use and would need during a natural disaster.

Florida offers a Sales Tax Holiday for Disaster Preparedness just before the start of Hurricane Season in the Spring. The 2020 Disaster Preparedness Sales Tax Holiday will run from May 29 through June 4, 2020. During which, qualifying items for disaster preparedness are exempt from sales tax. Proceed to the 2020 Disaster Preparedness Sales Tax Holiday website for a complete list of items to stock up tax free.

5 | NEW Hurricanes at Home! Webinar Series

This year, the National Hurricane Center launched the “Hurricanes at Home!” Webinar series for middle school students and those interested in learning about tropical cyclones. Each episode include specific hazards and topics for different states and locations. You can view new and archived webinars in English and Spanish on the NOAA/NWS National Hurricane Center YouTube Channel.