Forecasters Predict Extremely Active Florida Hurricane Season in 2013
Last week we talked about getting prepared for hurricane season. If you skimmed over the post before, it might be a good idea to go back over the list, just to make sure you didn’t forget something important.
That’s because the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has predicted 13 to 20 named storms for the 2013 year. You can watch the Associated Press video below.
NOAA predicts that 7 to 11 of these storms will become hurricanes. 3 to 4 of those storms are likely to reach Category 3 or higher.
It’s important to stay very alert about weather conditions until hurricane season ends in November. You do not want to be caught unawares or unprepared.
It’s also important to know your evacuation zone. You can use this online tool to search evacuation zones by address.
The tool says “City of Tampa,” but we tested it with a Largo address and it worked just fine.
According to National Geographic , NOAA’s predictions are likely to be more accurate than ever. They’ve got a brand new predictive analysis program called the Hurricane Weather Research and FOrecast System (HWRF) on their side.
“The HWRF model…can track the constantly shifting, moment-to-moment weather conditions that affect a hurricane’s path, as well as conditions that are distant at the moment but could influence the storm’s path days later.
Real-time data for the model comes from many sources, including weather satellites, buoys, and NOAA’s hurricane-hunting aircraft. As a storm progresses, each change that it encounters is immediately folded into the HWRF forecast.”
In short, NOAA’s warnings probably should not be ignored.
As far as making sure your gutters are ready for this active season, you’ll need to clean them out. This is also a good time to think about extending your downspouts if you haven’t done so already. Later we’ll devote a specific post to your gutters and downspouts and what you should do about them both before and after a hurricane.
For now, we felt it was more important to give our readers the heads up. This hurricane season is going to be rough.
We’ve been installing gutters, repairing gutters, and cleaning gutters for over three decades. If you live in Homosassa, Beverley Hills or anywhere else in the Tampa metro area give us a call for a free estimate.






