The rule of thumb is that the cold events don't get as cold as the warm events get warm. If you heat the ocean, you get lots of rain, way above normal. But if you cool the ocean, the most that happens is you shut off the rain. Once it's shut off, you can't get negative rain. Still, even Glantz thinks this year may be exceptional.
Warning signs are already abundant.
The Southern plains and the Southeast broiled all summer long under record heat. Rain was sparse, and crop losses quickly mounted. Florida, wracked earlier in the spring by a rash of tornadoes, was next blackened by fires consuming its dried-out forests and grasslands as the rains failed in early summer. Although the rains finally returned, so did the threat of a hyperactive hurricane season. Hurricane Georges, Sept. 26, 1998.