By Sid Perkins
The above-average number of major hurricanes in the North Atlantic during the past 6 years may signal a weather trend that could threaten Central America, the Caribbean, and the eastern United States for decades to come.
Hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean north of the equator was generally quiet between 1971 and 1994, says Stanley B. Goldenberg, a meteorologist at NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division in Miami. Then, between 1995 and 2000, the overall annual hurricane activity doubled. Activity is a measure that includes the number, duration, and strength of storms. More disturbingly, the proportion of the storms that grew into major hurricanes—those with wind speeds greater than 112 miles per hour—was higher in those years than in the previous quiet spell.