Dr. Lixion Avila is a weather forecaster with the National Hurricane Center (NHC). He has been a senior hurricane specialist[1] there since 1987 and is the longest-tenured senior specialist.
He is the only Cuban American specialist on the staff and is bilingual in English and Spanish.
Avila generally forecasts with a quirky personal touch. Similar to his NHC counterpart Dr. James Franklin, Avila occasionally expresses his opinion or sense of humor, often in the discussion areas of advisories. For example:
- When forecasting Tropical Storm Dolly in 2002, Avila said, "The bell just rang in the Tropical Atlantic, Hello Dolly." [1]
- For the last advisory of the long-lived Hurricane Kyle of 2002, he expressed that "I hope there will be no more surprises."[2]
- For Hurricane Ivan (2004), when remnants of the storm reformed into a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico, he noted that the decision to name it "Ivan" was "after considerable and sometimes animated in-house discussion of the demise of Ivan ... while debate will surely continue here and elsewhere". [3]
- In an interview for Hurricane Wilma (2005), he said, "First of all, I could not believe it. Nobody in their right mind would have expected this drop in pressure." [4]
- For Hurricane Epsilon (2005), he said "There are no clear reasons, and I am not going to make one up, to explain the recent strengthening of Epsilon." In the same advisory, he predicted that Epsilon would break down into a "remnant low". Referencing Epsilon's longevity and then oft-predicted demise, he then added, "I heard that before about Epsilon, haven't you?"[5]
- As 2005's Tropical Storm Zeta continued to persist into January 2006, "As you can see, I ran out [of] things to say."[6]
- For Hurricane Ernesto (2006), he said "Since neither I nor the [forecast] models are good enough to precisely know if Ernesto will have an intensity of 64 knots at landfall, which is the border between hurricane and tropical storm intensity and 4 knots above the forecast, a hurricane watch has been issued for a portion of the coast."[7]
- For Tropical Storm Juliette (2007), he said "If some of the dynamical models have their way, Juliette could meet her less-than-Shakespearean demise sooner than indicated in the official forecast". [8]
- For Hurricane Hanna (2008), he said "Most of the models continue to intensify Hanna, some of them quite significantly, despite the shear. I do not have an explanation for it." as well as further down in the same advisory (9); "I tried very hard to not forecast the west-southwest turn since this is not a very common tropical cyclone track, but reliable dynamical guidance has forced me to do so. I always wondered how today's sophisticated dynamical models would have forecast Hurricane Betsy back in 1965. This hurricane moved southwestward over the Bahamas."[9]
- During Tropical Storm Odile in 2008, he said "Odile...The tropical cyclone...has really fooled me as Odile...the evil character in the ballet Swan Lake...fooled the prince." [10]
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