by Doyle Rice, USA TODAY
Eight hurricanes are predicted to form in the Atlantic this season
All of the forecasts are in, and
with the heart of the hurricane season just weeks away, an unusually busy year
still looks likely.
The final "preseason"
forecast from top experts at Colorado State University, released Friday morning
(August 02), again calls for an "above-average 2013 Atlantic basin
hurricane season."
A total of 18 named tropical storms
are forecast to form, of which eight should be hurricanes. This is a slight
reduction from Colorado State's previous forecasts, which called for nine
hurricanes.
A typical year, based on weather
records that go back to 1950, has 12 tropical storms, of which seven are
hurricanes. A tropical storm has sustained winds of 39 mph; it becomes a
hurricane when its winds reach 74 mph.
The Atlantic hurricane season
started June 1 and lasts until Nov. 30. So far this year, four tropical storms
have formed in the Atlantic, but no hurricanes, according to the National
Hurricane Center. August and September are the two most active months for
hurricanes in the Atlantic.
The forecast does not include
hurricanes that form in the eastern Pacific basin, which seldom affect the USA.
The prediction was released by meteorologists
Philip Klotzbach and William Gray at Colorado State's Tropical Meteorology
Project.
Why the drop in the number of
predicted hurricanes? "While the tropical Atlantic remains warmer than
normal, it has cooled somewhat in the eastern portion of the basin,"
Klotzbach said. Warm water provides the fuel that helps a hurricane form.
Nevertheless, an active season still
looks probable: "It appears that the chances of an El Niño event this
summer and fall are unlikely," he says."Typically, El Niño is
associated with stronger vertical shear across the tropical Atlantic, creating
conditions less conducive for storm formation."
Colorado State was the first
organization to issue seasonal hurricane forecasts, and is now in its 30th year
of issuing these forecasts.
The Colorado State team's seasonal
forecasts tend to be conservative: Since 2000, the team has under-forecast the
number of named tropical storms and hurricanes seven times, over-forecast three
times and been almost right — within two storms — three times, a USA TODAY
analysis shows.
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