El Nino May Delay Hurricanes

El Nino, the favorite scapegoat of meteorologists, is getting blamed for yet another odd change in the weather.

The Pacific phenomenon has been mellowing the bad weather over the Atlantic, and also may delay the hurricane season in the area this year. The season also may get a slow start in the Caribbean and in the Gulf of Mexico.

"There's no question we'll see a lingering El Nino," National Weather Service director Jack Kelly said Thursday. "One effect is, we could have a slight delay in the start of the hurricane season."

That doesn't mean there won't be any hurricanes. The Atlantic hurricane season, which runs June 1 to Nov. 30, looks like the normal lineup: nine storms, six hurricanes, and two intense ones.

An El Nino-induced break last season allowed only Hurricane Danny to hit the United States for a damage toll of $100 million - only a tiny fraction of the $5 billion average.

But as El Nino wears down, tropical storms should regain their fierceness.

"If you live along the coast from Texas to Maine, it's not a question of if, but when," said Jerry Jarrell, the newly installed director of the National Hurricane Center. "The hurricane will come."

The center is taking advantage of a new tracking device, an 18-inch cylinder packed with digitized sensors and a green-and-white parachute.

A "drop sonde" is ejected from a hurricane-hunting jet at 43,000 feet and constantly measures wind speed and direction, temperature, barometric pressure, and moisture on a 20-minute drop to the ocean.

The equipment, used for the first time last season, consistently offered data on hurricane wind speed at sea level and proved what forecasters had long suspected.

The most fierce winds were at 100 feet to 300 feet, up to 50 percent faster than at ground level.