Hyperactive Hurricane Season Possible in 2020

The world's oceans are simmering, with record high temperatures spurring worrying among forecasters that the global warming effect may generate a chaotic year of extreme weather.

Parts of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans all hit the record books for warmth last month, according to the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Information.  The high temperatures could offer clues to the potential ferocity of the upcoming 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, the eruption of wildfires in the Western USA, Amazonia, and Australia, and whether the record heat and severe thunderstorms strafing the southern USA will continue into summer.

In the Gulf of Mexico, where offshore drilling accounts for about 17% of USA oil output, water temperatures were 76.3° (24.6°C), 1.7° above the long-term average, according to Phil Klotzbach at Colorado State University.  If Gulf waters stay warm, it could be the fuel that intensifies any tropical storm that heads that way.


Michelle L'Heureux, a forecaster at the USA Climate Prediction Center said, "The entire tropical ocean is above average, and there is a global warming component to that.  It is really amazing when you look at all the tropical oceans and see how warm they are."
The record warm water in the Gulf of Mexico spilled over into every coastal community along the shoreline with all-time high temperatures on land, said Deke Arndt, chief of the monitoring section at the National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, North Carolina.  Florida recorded its warmest March on record, and Miami reached 93° on one April 15, 2020, a record and 10° above normal, according to the National Weather Service.

While the coronavirus has the nation's attention right now, global warming continues to be a threat.  Sea water "remembers and holds onto heat" better than the atmosphere, Arndt said.
Overall, the five warmest years in the world's seas, as measured by modern instruments, have occurred over just the last half-dozen or so years.  It's "definitely climate-change related,"  said Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts.  "Oceans are absorbing about 90% of the heat trapped by extra greenhouse gases."

Worldwide, sea temperatures were 1.49° Fahrenheit above average in March.  That's the second highest level recorded since 1880 for the month of March, according to US data.  In 2016, temperatures were 1.55° F above average.
The first of Colorado State's 2020 storm reports, led by Klotzbach, forecast this year that eight hurricanes could spin out of the Atlantic with an above-average chance at least one will make landfall in the USA during the six-month season starting June 1.  NOAA is set to issue its own hurricane forecast next month.

ARCTIC SYSTEMS
The searing global temperatures this year can also be traced back to intense climate systems around the Arctic that bottled up much of that region's cold, preventing it from spilling south into temperate regions.  Combined with global warming, this was a one-two punch for sea temperatures that's brought them to historic highs.

One of the best-known examples of how oceans drive global weather patterns is the development of El Nino.  It occurs when unusually warm waters in the equatorial Pacific interact with the atmosphere to alter weather patterns worldwide.  In the Atlantic, for instance, El Ninos can cause severe wind shear that can break up developing storms with the potential to become dangerous hurricanes.
This year, the chance of an El Nino developing are small, and scientists are theorizing one reason could be that climate change is warming all the world's oceans.  El Nino "depends on contrats, as well as absolute values of sea-surface temperatures,"  according to Kevin Trenberth, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Florida disappears with 5m sea level rise

HURRICANES STRENGTHENING THEIR FURY
Meanwhile, if the Atlantic stays warm through the six-month storm season that starts June 1, the tropical systems can use it as fuel to strengthen their fury.

The oceans also play a role in creating the conditions for wildfires.  In the case of Australia and Amazonia, really warm areas of the ocean can pull rain away from land, causing drier conditions and, in extreme cases, drought.  Last year, for instance, the Indian Ocean was really warm off of Africa, so that is where all the storms went.  Australia was left dry.

Back in the Atlantic, research by Katia DeAvila Fernandes, a geosciences professor at the University of Arkansas, has also shown a correlation between sea surface temperatures in the northern tropical Atlantic and drought and wildfires in the Amazon.  The warmer the water, the further north rainfall is pulled across South America.
According to Fernandes model, even Atlantic temperatures in March can serve to predict if the Amazon will be dry and susceptible to fires.

For California, the outlook isn't as clear.  Wildfires there depend as much on how well vegetation grows, providing fuel for the flames, as it does on weather conditions in the Pacific.

"Tricky question,"said Mike Anderson, California state climatologist, when asked about California weather outcomes and sea-surface temperatures.  "[California's] weather outcomes are influenced by sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific, but it depends on where and when the warm waters appear and how long they persist.  In the end we have a highly variable climate that doesn't map in a statistically convenient way to patterns of sea-surface temperatures.
SUPERNATURAL touched on just about every imaginable plague in their 15 seasons.  The introduction of the character "Pestilence," in Season 5, played by fan favorite Matt Frewer (best known as Max Headroom), draws the most comparisons to today's COVID-19 pandemic.

"Pestilence" played by Matt Frewer in Supernatural Season 5

Pestilence is a Horsemen, very powerful.  Like his brothers, he requires his ring to help him focus his powers and manifest a physical form.  A testament to his powers was his willingness to defy Lucifer's orders.
In Hammer of the Gods, at a small drug store, a large fly lands on the clerk's desk as the clerk reads about a viral epidemic that has been going around the area, but before he can swat the fly, Pestilence enters the store, hacking and coughing up gobs of a disgusting mucus and spreading it everywhere as he looks for some flu medicine.  When Pestilence takes the flu medicine to the counter, he sneezes more of his mucus into the clerk's face, and like COVID-19, likely infects him with the latest virus he has brought to Earth.  When Pestilence leaves the store, he gets in his sickly green, beat-up Pinto, tosses the medicine aside and smiles to himself as a swarm of flies fill his car, revealing that his "illness" is merely a ruse so he can spread virus and infect as many humans as possible.
Like his brothers, Pestilence has been busy spreading his influence across the Earth, and according to the paper the clerk is reading, he has already spread several contagious viruses in the area.  Then in the disguise of an ill traveler, he tells the clerk he still has "a lot of driving to do," implying he has more tricks up his sleeve.
Pestilence's ring acts as a conduit and a means to focus his abilities in the material world, and he thus has dominion over sickness itself.

Pestilence is mentioned in Death Takes a Holiday (Season 4) but we don't see him.  He appears in Sympathy for the Devil (hidden visage), Hammer of the Gods, The Devil You Know (unseen), and Two Minutes to Midnight.

Pestilence's licence plate reads "SIKN TRD,"  which translates to "sick and tired."
"Disease gets a bad rep, don't you think? For being filthy, chaotic.  Uh, but, really, that just describes people who get sick.  Disease itself. . . very. . . pure.  Single-minded.  Bacteria have one purpose:  divide and conquer.  That's why in the end. . . it ways wins." 

—Pestilence, in Season 5, speaking to Sam and Dean in the episode Two Minutes to Midnight.