If a hurricane dies at sea, does anybody count it?

This post from the Capital Weather Gang is a reminder that the lack of Atlantic hurricanes which made landfall this year does not mean it was a tepid hurricane season. The year's tracks are shown at right.

The number of named Atlantic storms (19) and number of hurricanes (12) was twice the long-term average and higher than almost all of the predictions. The difference this year is that no powerful storms struck the U.S. thanks to the response of the upper-level air flow to the El Nino / La Nina oscillation in the Pacific, a subject discussed here before.

The Atlantic hurricane discussion tends to focus almost entirely on the U.S. It is important to remember that not every country was spared. Haiti (above) is still recovering from Hurricane Tomas, in particular the outbreak of cholera caused or exacerbated by the heavy rainfall and flooding just a few weeks ago.