Grand Bahama Island - An exclusive interview by The Bahamas Weekly News Team with famed hurricane expert, Meteorologist, Dr. William Gray from Colorado State University. Dr. Gray is a keynote speaker at the 12th Annual Bahamas Weather Conference. At this conference, Dr. Gray and his colleague Phil Klotzbach released their predictions for the upcoming hurricane season.
In December, Gray's group based at Colorado State University, forecast an above-normal season with 13 named storms, seven hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes. A hurricane is considered major when it reaches category 3 status or when winds reach 111 mph.
Wikipedia: William M. "Bill" Gray
(born 1929) is a pioneer in the science of forecasting hurricanes. In 1952 he received a B.S. degree in geography from George Washington University, and in 1959 a M.S. in meteorology from the University of Chicago, where he went on to earn a Ph.D. in geophysical sciences in 1964.
Gray pioneered the concept of "seasonal" hurricane forecasting—predicting months in advance the severity of the coming hurricane season. Gray's prognostications have been issued since 1984 and are used by insurance companies to calculate premiums.
Gray is Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University (CSU), and head of the Tropical Meteorology Project at CSU's Department of Atmospheric Sciences. Gray is noted for his forecasts of Atlantic hurricane season activity.
Gray served as a weather forecaster for the United States Air Force, and as a research assistant in the University of Chicago Department of Meteorology. He joined Colorado State University in 1961. He has been advisor of over 70 Ph.D. and M.S. students. His team has been issuing seasonal hurricane forecasts since 1984.
After the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, Gray announced that he was stepping back from the primary authorship of CSU's tropical cyclone probability forecasts, passing the role to Philip J. Klotzbach. Gray indicated that he would be devoting more time to the issue of global warming. He is a controversial figure in the global warming debate, as he does not subscribe to anthropogenic causes for global warming.
