Hurricane Season Guesses
The Colorado State University forecast team has increased its predictions for the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season.
Forecasters now call for 13 named storms, with five of those expected to become hurricanes and two of those to become major hurricanes.
The two pre-season storms, Alberto and Beryl, are included in the revised prediction.
The team still anticipates slightly below-average activity due to cooling of the Atlantic and the potential development of El Nino.
Jeff Masters provides a round-up of the majority of guesses plus a lot of technical information that is being used to support the forecasts.
Looking at the latest Pacific Sea Surface Temperatures I don’t see any major pool of warm water, i.e. an El Niño, but the La Niña [a pool of cool water in the Pacific off Peru] just faded, so it may happen in the future.
Overall the Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature are down a bit in the area where most hurricanes are born, which is good news. Not so good news for the Atlantic Coast from North Carolina to Maine is that their SSTs are higher than normal, increasing the risk of something nasty hitting them.
