Wedding Weather Outlook for Summer and Fall 2007

Watch out for wedding crashers Andrea, Barry, Chantal, Dean, Erin, Felix, Gabrielle, Humberto, Ingrid, Jerry, Karen, Lorenzo, Melissa, Noel, Olga, Pablo, Rebekah, Sebastien, Tanya, Van, and Wendy. The wedding will not go according to plan if just one arrives at your ceremony. Those names are the 2007 names assigned to tropical storms when they form in the Alantic Ocean. The last thing you want to hear after all the hard work of planning a wedding is that Felix is coming and bringing 100 mph winds! This could be a likely scenario though for weddings in the eastern and southeastern parts of the country and the entire Gulf of Mexico coast. The hurricane forecast for the 2007 Atlantic season calls for 17 named storms with five of them being major hurricanes. For a tropical storm to be tagged with a name the winds have to be 39 mph or higher. The storm becomes a hurricane when the winds reach 74 mph. A major hurricane is when winds are 111 mph or higher. The season officially kicks off in the Atlantic June 1st and goes through November 30th peaking in early September. Just because the storm is named does not automatically mean it's going to make landfall in the United States. But some of the latest trends should have brides and wedding planners taking notice.


Dr. William Gray, Philip J. Klotzbach, and William Thorson of Colorado State University have been issuing hurricane forecasts for years based on their research of global weather patterns. They are very respected in the forecast community. Their forecast is the one already mentioned for the 2007 hurricane season. But it's the numbers below that are more alarming seeing how the clean up is still going on for Katrina which hit almost two years ago.


PROBABILITIES FOR AT LEAST ONE MAJOR (CATEGORY 3-4-5) HURRICANE LANDFALL ON EACH OF THE FOLLOWING COASTAL AREAS



1) Entire U.S. coastline - 74% (average for last century is 52%)



2) U.S. East Coast Including Peninsula Florida - 50% (average for
last century is 31%)


3) Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle westward to Brownsville -
49%
(average for last century is 30%)



4) Above-average major hurricane landfall risk in the Caribbean





A Category 3 storm has winds at 111 mph to 130 mph, a Category 4 storm packs winds at 131 mph to 155 mph, and in a Category 5 storm the winds are 156 mph or greater.


The temperature outlook for the early summer for the United States isn't
anything too shocking. The National Climate Prediction Center calls for
above
normal temperatures for almost all of the Southwest including eastern
California, southern Idaho, all of Utah, and southwestern Colorado.
More
above normal temperatures can be expected in all of New Mexico except a
small
northeast area, through south central Texas, south central Louisiana,
south
central Mississippi, south central Alabama, south central Georgia, and
south
central South Carolina. North Carolina will have above normal
temperatures
east of I95 and all of Florida is expected to be above normal. Below
normal
temperatures are forecast for eastern Montana, all of North Dakota,
northwest
Minnesota, and a narrow area of northern South Dakota.



Precipitation forecast calls for normal weather conditions for all of
the
United States with below normal rainfall forecasts for Idaho from the
Snake
River south, all of Wyoming, west Colorado, all of Utah, an area from
extreme
southeast Oregon down through northeast Nevada, northeast Arizona, and
northwest New Mexico.



It gets a little warm going into the late summer and early fall months
with
most of the country running above normal temperatures except eastern
Montana,
eastern Wyoming, eastern Colorado, northwest Kansas, northwest Iowa, all
of
the Dakotas, all of Minnesota, and all of Nebraska. The Carolinas
will
be
under near normal as will eastern Kentucky, eastern Tennessee, all of
Virginia, and eastern Georgia.



As far as the precipitation look for above normal conditions from
central
North and South Carolinas and areas to the coast, southern Georgia, and
all of
Florida. Below normal precipitation is forecast for Idaho, Oregon,
northern
half of Nevada and northern half of California for the late summer and
early
fall months.



So there you have it. This doesn't mean not to plan a wedding along
coastal
regions. The purpose of this article is to bring attention to the
weather
when planning a wedding. This year when booking weddings in hurricane
country
a little extra attention to detail, like hiring an experienced wedding
planner
from the region to help you with a good back up plan for you and your
guests
if a hurricane crashes the party!

Author: Vin Crosby

www.BridalWeather.com