Another quiet hurricane season for St. Mary

Monday marked the last day of hurricane season, a fortunately uneventful one for St. Mary Parish and the Gulf of Mexico region.
The Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean and Atlantic Ocean had below normal hurricane activity this season, National Weather Service meteorologist Roger Erickson said.
Conversely, the Pacific Ocean season “was real busy,” he said.
“It was fortunate for us here that it was quiet locally,” Erickson said.
El Niño contributed to the calmer Gulf season because it typically brings “stronger wind shear,” which keeps strong storms from developing in the Gulf of Mexico, he said.
El Niño occurs when the water temperature is above normal near the equator in the Pacific Ocean. La Niña, which is a lower than normal water temperature in the Pacific, makes for a more active season in the Gulf of Mexico, Erickson said.
Wind shear refers to strong winds 30,000 feet to 40,000 feet in the air.
Normally in the summer, the gulf coast has calm winds at the height, Erickson said. But during El Niño summers, winds can blow from 20 mph to 40 mph.
St. Mary Parish has now gone several years without a storm directly affecting the area.
The last storm to hit near St. Mary was Tropical Storm Lee, which made landfall at the edge of Vermilion and Iberia parishes on Labor Day weekend 2011. Lee affected the Louisiana Shrimp & Petroleum Festival schedule that year due to the forecast of strong winds, Erickson said.
Lee’s winds reached 60 mph, just a little below hurricane strength. At Cypremort Point, the tides ran a couple feet above normal and topped the roadway there, he said.
The 2016 hurricane season will again be heavily dependent on what El Niño does.
“The big question mark for next year will be the timing of when El Niño ends,” Erickson said.
If El Niño continues into the summer next year, then the Gulf of Mexico will have another quiet hurricane season, he said.
However, if El Niño stops in February or March, the region could see a more active than normal hurricane season, Erickson said.