LAKE CHARLES — Annual hurricane forecasts are actually meant to remind coastal residents to be prepared. No matter how sophisticated and technologically advanced the equipment there is no real way to pinpoint the exact spot a storm will make landfall.

But being prepared is what it’s all about.

This year's season is expected to be more active than last year as the waters in the Atlantic, the breeding ground for hurricanes, will be warmer than normal.

“But there's no way of knowing in April or May what the steering currents will be later,” he said.

Looking at the larger picture, Erickson explains that since 1995 there has been an above normal pattern. But this pattern can end up like last year's pretty uneventful season — or not.

Ocean temperatures play an integral part during hurricane season. The terms El Nino, or unusually warm temperatures,  and La Nino, unusually cool temperatures, in the equatorial Pacific are bounced around a lot. Currently we are in a transition period, he said.

Hurricane evacuation during the past 50 years has been few and far between until recent years.

In 1961 there was Category 4 Hurricane Carla that caused billions of dollars in damages and sent more than 500,000 residents to safe areas away from the coast. Only 43 deaths are attributed to the hurricane.

Then there’s a gap of about 30 years when no evacuations were called and no major storms threatened the area. Then Hurricane Andrew blew in in 1992, striking nearby Louisiana.

Another gap appears between Andrew and the devastating Hurricane Rita in 2005 that struck Southwest Louisiana causing widespread damage in Southeast Texas.

Three years later evacuation was called in preparation of Hurricane Gustav in 2008. The storm took a turn towards Louisiana, making landfall near Grand Isle, La.

About a week later, as residents settled back into their familiar routine, a second threat to the coast came along in the form of Hurricane Ike, and another evacuation was called.

“In reality, every time an evacuation is call, this doesn’t mean a direct strike is imminent,” he said.

But in order for the safe evacuation of hundreds of thousands of residents in the tri-county area, the call must be made fairly early.

Erickson said the call usually comes when a storm is about 150 miles off the coast, sometimes right before the storm enters the Gulf of Mexico. That decision is left up to city authorities.

“With Rita we were forecasting landfall farther down on the Texas coast. We woke up each day and saw a wobble,” he said. “Landfall prediction inched up the coast. If Rita had made a direct hit to the Port Arthur area the levy would have been breached.”

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently released their latest prediction for the Atlantic Basic.

NOAA is calling for an “active to extremely active hurricane season this year.

Across the entire Atlantic Basin for the six-month season, which begins June 1, NOAA is projecting a 70 percent probability of the following ranges:

• 14 to 23 Named Storms (top winds of 39 mph or higher), including:
• 8 to 14 Hurricanes (top winds of 74 mph or higher), of which:
• 3 to 7 could be Major Hurricanes (Category 3, 4 or 5; winds of at least 111 mph)

mmeaux@panews.com