Weakening Tropical Storm Danny Likely to Miss East Coast

Aug. 28, 2009 – The second storm of the year to potentially threaten the U.S. coast instead is petering out and no longer expected to grow into a hurricane, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Tropical Storm Danny’s sustained winds have declined to 50 mph as it creeps slowly northeastward at about 2 mph, and the National Hurricane Center now says it likely will skirt the U.S. coast before making landfall in the eastern Canadian provinces by Sunday. The storm was located roughly 500 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and is following a path similar to that of the recently dissipated Hurricane Bill – the first hurricane of 2009.

Hurricane Bill weakened to a category 1 hurricane with sustained winds of about 75 mph when it made landfall in Canada's southeast Newfoundland on Sunday, according to Risk Management Solutions. Although damages were light, Hurricane Bill was blamed for killing at least two in the United States over the weekend.

Hurricane Bill came within 150 miles of the U.S. shoreline before continuing north over eastern Canada. Having briefly grown to Category 4 status with winds exceeding 135 mph, the storm weakened to a Category 1 hurricane with sustained winds of about 85 mph as it made landfall Sunday in Canada, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

A Category 1 hurricane is the weakest on the Saffir-Simpson five-step scale, but Canadian officials were concerned the storm would bring heavy amounts of rainfall as well as a damaging storm surge compounded by high tides. Hurricane Bill was the second named storm of the 2009 season and the year's first hurricane.

Until recently, 2009 had been calm with the year's first named storm, Tropical Storm Ana, dying out as Hurricane Bill gained strength. The formation of an El Nino pattern in the eastern Pacific Ocean recently caused storm forecasters to reduce their expected number of storms this year.

Because an El Nino, which is an occasional warming of ocean waters, increases upper-level wind shear, hurricanes and tropical storms have more trouble forming in the Atlantic as the wind shear tears them apart, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The toned down storm forecast could provide a boost for property insurers reeling from one of the costliest hurricane seasons on record last year. Colorado State University researchers in April predicted 14 named storms, including seven hurricanes -- three of them "major" hurricanes capable of inflicting billions of dollars in storm-related damages. The 50-year average is 9.6 named storms, 5.9 hurricanes and 2.3 major hurricanes.