Hurricane season prediction season officially began this morning with the release of Bill Gray and Phil Klotzbach’s first numerical forecast (see their report) for the 2012 season.
The pair are calling for a slightly below average season, with 10 named storms, 4 hurricanes and 2 major hurricanes. In summary, they say:
Quote:
We anticipate a somewhat below-average Atlantic basin hurricane season due to a combination of an anomalously cool tropical Atlantic and the potential development of El Niño.
The median number of named storms — that’s tropical storms and hurricanes — that have formed during Atlantic hurricane seasons since 1980 is 12, with 6.5 hurricanes and 2 major hurricanes.
snip
Hurricane forecaster Joe Bastardi, who now works for Weather Bell, released his forecast on Tuesday, calling for “an overall decrease in tropical activity as compared to last year, but with the focus of tropical development closer to the United States.”
Bastardi predicts 9 to 12 named storms in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. That’s well below the 19 named storms in 2010 and 2011
Read more here: http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2012/04/forecasters-2012-atlantic-hurricane-season-will-see-near-or-slightly-below-normal-activity/