Forecasters Predict A Worse Than Normal Hurricane Season

(April 7) Colorado State University’s hurricane forecast team predicts an above average probability of United States and Caribbean major hurricane fall.

The Atlantic hurricane season begins on June 1st and can extend through the end of November.  Hurricane seasons typically peak around September 10th. 

Last season was one of the calmest since 1997.  There were only nine storms, including only three hurricanes.  This year’s hurricane season promises to be much more extreme.

Colorado State University experts suggest, “the weakening of El Nino conditions combined with a very strong anomalous warming of the tropical Atlantic… will lead to favorable dynamic and thermodynamic conditions for hurricane formation and intensification.”

For the last century, the chance that a major hurricane with sustained winds of more than 178 km/h will hit the U.S. coast has been 52 percent.  This year, the prediction is much higher, at 69 percent for the hurricane season beginning June 1st.  There is also a 45 percent chance it will strike the East Coast including the Florida peninsula.

The chance of a hurricane hit across the Caribbean this season is 58 percent, 16 percent higher than the average.

Seasonal predictions amount to 15 named tropical storms.  Eight will be hurricanes and four will be major system that measure three or more on the Saffir-Simpson scale.