Will I rue these words?

From the way the media and politicans are talking about [June 1] — from the ominous tones in which they refer to “the start of hurricane season” — you’d think that at the stroke of midnight tonight, a bevy of Category Five hurricanes will spontaneously form off the U.S. coast and start moving toward land.

Well, let me make my first Official Weather Nerd Prediction^TM of the 2006 season: that ain’t gonna happen. :)

Hmm… well, looky here, it’s not even midnight yet, and already, something has caught the computer models’ attention. [CORRECTION: It’s a test, not a real storm. Sorry!] And Weather Channel Senior Meteorologist Stu Ostro writes: “hopefully not an omen, but maybe it is — there’s already a disturbance spinning in the Gulf of Mexico and an unusually large amount of convection in the deep tropical Atlantic for so early.”

But, uh, I’m still pretty confident in my prediction. :)

Of more genuine significance is this article (hat tip: Kristy), which reveals that New Orleans is sinking much faster than previously thought — a fact which may help explain some of last year’s levee failures, and may spell trouble for this year and future years:

The data show that some areas are sinking — from overdevelopment, drainage and natural seismic shifts — four or five times faster than the rest of the city. And that, experts say, can be deadly.

“My concern is the very low-lying areas,� said lead author Tim Dixon, a University of Miami geophysicist. “I think those areas are death traps. I don’t think those areas should be rebuilt.�

For years, scientists figured New Orleans on average was sinking about one-fifth of an inch (5 millimeters) a year, based on 100 measurements of the region, Dixon said. The new data, from 150,000 measurements taken from space, find that about 10 percent to 20 percent of the region had yearly subsidence in the inch-a-year (25-millimeter-a-year) range, he said.

As the grounds in those rapidly sinking areas shift downward, the protection from levees also falls, scientists and engineers said.

For example, the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, built more than three decades ago, has sunk by more than 3 feet (1 meter) since its construction, Dixon said. That, he added, explained why water poured over the levee and part of it failed.

“The people in St. Bernard got wiped out because the levee was too low,� said co-author Roy Dokka, director of the Louisiana Spatial Center at Louisiana State University. “It’s as simple as that.�

The subsidence “is making the land more vulnerable; it’s also screwed up our ability to figure out where the land is,� Dokka said. And it means some evacuation roads, hospitals and shelters are farther below sea level than emergency planners thought, he said.

So when government officials talk of rebuilding levees to pre-Katrina levels, it may really still be several feet below what’s needed, Dokka and others say.

“Levees that are subsiding at a high rate are prone to failure,� Dixon said.

At what point would it become justified to say that New Orleans itself is a “death trap”? Just asking…