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The frequency and duration of U.S. hurricane droughts
Author(s) -
Hall Timothy,
Hereid Kelly
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2015gl063652
Subject(s) - landfall , tropical cyclone , climatology , environmental science , extratropical cyclone , atlantic hurricane , meteorology , duration (music) , geography , geology , art , literature
As of the end of the 2014 hurricane season, the U.S. has experienced no major hurricane landfall since Hurricane Wilma in 2005, a drought that currently stands at 9 years. Here we use a stochastic tropical cyclone model to calculate the mean waiting time for multiyear landfall droughts. We estimate that the mean time to wait for a 9 year drought is 177 years. We also find that the average probability of ending the drought with a major landfall in the next year is 0.39 and is independent of the drought duration, as one would expect for a Bernoulli process.