Gerry Bell Quotations

The waters in the Gulf of Mexico are warm, but so are the waters in the eastern Atlantic. But the water temperature isn't the controlling factor in whether a hurricane maintains its strength. Wind shear still determines whether a storm will strengthen or weaken before it hits land.

Although we have already seen a record-setting seven tropical storms during June and July, much of the season's activity is still to come.

It's not linked to global warming or anything like that. This is normal climate variability.

It's certainly reasonable to expect above-normal hurricane seasons for the next decade or perhaps even longer. It's not a matter of if more hurricanes are going to hit the coast, it's simply a matter of when.

It's reasonable to expect ongoing high levels of hurricane activity for many years to come and more importantly, ongoing high levels of hurricane landfalls for the next decade or perhaps longer.

These are double to triple the number we would see in an average season.

The climate patterns that we're seeing now didn't exist in the 1970s, '80s and most of the 1990s.