Dr. Jeff Masters notes the latest predictions for the season: Average hurricane season foreseen by CSU and NOAA.

The CSU team is calling for 11 named storms, 5 hurricanes, and 2 intense hurricanes, and an Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) 88% of average. Between 1950 – 2000, the average season had 10 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 2 intense hurricanes. But since 1995, the beginning of an active hurricane period in the Atlantic, we’ve averaged 15 named storms, 8 hurricanes, and 4 intense hurricanes per year.

The big factors are cooler than normal Sea Surface Temperatures for this time of year, and the possibility that an El Niño is developing in the Pacific.

Of course, it doesn’t mean much if there is only one storm this season, but it becomes a category 5 and takes aim at you.

There is an area of interest, Invest 92L, out in the Atlantic near the Azores, but it looks like it will mainly produce rain, in Spain… OK, on the plain.

The BBC has an article that indicates that the South Korean intel believes that the North Korean activity is about naming a successor.

Kim Jong-Il had a stroke, and has not formally named an heir, which makes the people at the top of the North Korean power structure nervous. The South Korean intel people apparently believe that all of the recent belligerent activity is for internal consumption, to confirm that he is still in charge, and to anoint his successor.

Following a custom, Kim Jong-il has three sons all named Kim Jong with the suffixes -nam, -chul, and -un. He has apparently selected the youngest, Kim Jong-un, to be his heir. This may be a difficult sell to the tradition-minded military, and the reason for all of the war-like behavior.

The BBC reports that Plane searchers spot ocean debris.

The BBC has a map in the article that overlays the satellite image of the weather over the Atlantic at the time of the flight which indicates that the crew had altered the flight path to avoid the worst of the of the storm activity.

Debris possibly belonging to the aircraft was spotted at two locations approximately 60 km apart which would indicate that the aircraft broke-up in flight, rather than ditching, which significantly reduces the possibility of survivors.

Surface vessels won’t reach the area until Wednesday, but the French are sending a research vessel with two mini-subs to attempt to locate the flight recorders in order to find out what happened.