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2005 Hurricane Season Still Most Active on Record

Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico, August 2005
NOAA
Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico, August 2005
Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico, August 2005
Credit NOAA
Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico, August 2005

Ten years later, the 2005 hurricane season remains the most active on record.

Barry Keim, Louisiana’s state climatologist, says that in 2005, “The sea surface temperatures were off the charts.” Keim explains that hurricanes need warm water to develop. The warmer the water, the stronger hurricanes can potentially become.

There were 28 named storms in 2005. “It was a crazy year,” Keim says. The last storm of the season, Tropical Storm Zeta, formed on December 30th—a full month after what should have been the end of hurricane season.

The biggest lesson Keim takes from the 2005 season is a reminder of how destructive hurricanes are. He says that even though the past ten years have been relatively quiet, people in Louisiana still get anxious when a storm enters the gulf. “There’s virtually no complacency about hurricanes in south Louisiana,” Keim says. “You say hurricane and people get the hell out of there. That’s a great thing.”

Talking with Keim, you get the sense he appreciates both the beauty and the devastation of a storm. During the interview, I couldn’t help noticing a poster of Hurricane Katrina hanging on his office wall. When I ask why he has it up there, Keim says:

I hate to say it in quite these terms, but it’s a really, from a meteorological perspective, it’s a beautiful storm. For something as vicious as it was and you know when it leads to deaths and things like that, you hate to use terms like that, but looking at its shape and its form, with its symmetry, a very defined eye….

Keim adds that hurricanes take in dry air as they approach land, which typically causes them to break apart. But that didn’t happen to Katrina. So it kept the form Keim finds so stunning.

Copyright 2021 WRKF. To see more, visit WRKF.

Nick Janzen

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