AccuWeather’s Bastardi: Intense Hurricanes Part of Natural Cycle

Carolyn Hileman* | September 1, 2007

On the Tuesday, August 21 The O’Reilly Factor on FNC, AccuWeather senior meteorologist Joe Bastardi poured cold water on claims that a global warming trend has been the cause of hurricanes of increased intensity as he contended that the Northern Hemisphere similarly saw periods of increased hurricane activity in past decades, going back to the 1890s: “We’re back in the ’30’s, ’40’s and 50’s. This back and forth cycle that occurs, we saw it in the 1890s to 1910….And people are just getting carried away and fascinated when, if they go back and look at what happened before, you can see the similarities.”After getting his guest to give a summary of the latest on Hurricane Dean, FNC host Bill O’Reilly turned the discussion to global warming: “Of course, environmentalists are going to say this is global warming. And is the fact that the waters are warmer, is that going to make it a tougher fall for hurricanes for the USA?”In his response, Bastardi brought up harsh hurricane seasons from earlier in the century: “We’ve seen this before. And I coined this term ‘time of climatic hardship’ because we are back in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s as far as the overall climate pattern in the Northern Hemisphere. You see, we’ve seen this before. The problem is a lot of people don’t go back and look at those type of things.”He soon noted the hurricane that hit New York City in 1938 as he predicted history will likely repeat itself somewhat soon: “You, as a Long Island boy, must have heard tales from your father about the ‘38 hurricane on Long Island. And that’s what we’re looking at, and the potential for that type of thing down the road. But if it happens, if it happens again, and I do think it is going to happen within our lifetime, and probably sooner rather than later, some kind of big storm like that, people will go out of their minds. Yet it was there before.”

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