The start of hurricane season is 6 weeks away, and four independent forecast outlets unanimously agree it will be a busy one.
Colorado State’s Bill Gray and protege Philip Klotzbach, the pioneers of seasonal hurricane forecasting, predict a blockbuster hurricane season, with 18 named storms, 9 hurricanes and 4 major hurricanes. (The 1981-2010 30-year averages are 12.1 named storms, 6.4 hurricanes, and 2.7 major hurricanes.)
“We anticipate an above-average Atlantic basin hurricane season due to the combination of an anomalously warm tropical Atlantic and a relatively low likelihood of El Niño,” Klotzbach and Gray write in their outlook, released last week.
Ugh–read it all.