Brace for ‘extremely active’ storm season
Batten down the hatches. The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season should be “extremely active, and could be the most active since 2010,” federal forecasters from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Wednesday.
Six named storms already have formed, including Hurricane Franklin, which was expected to hit the east coast of Mexico late Wednesday. Two of the storms, Cindy in June and Emily in July, struck the United States.
“We’re now entering the peak of the season,” said Gerry Bell, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.
NOAA said 14 to 19 named storms are now expected to form this year, with five to nine becoming hurricanes. The numbers include the six storms that already have occurred. The 2010 season had 19 named storms.
Last year, NOAA predicted 10 to 16 named storms, of which four to eight would be hurricanes. Fifteen storms formed, and seven were hurricanes.
Updated forecast predicts 14 to 19 named storms, and five to nine becoming hurricanes
A tropical storm produces wind speeds of 39 mph or higher and becomes a hurricane when winds reach 74 mph.
The latest forecast, an update to one released in May, makes no prediction about where or when the storms and hurricanes will hit. The wind and air patterns in the Atlantic and Caribbean, where many of the storms develop, make an above-average season more likely, Bell said.
Meteorologists at Colorado State University last week also updated their forecast, predicting 16 tropical storms, with eight becoming hurricanes. The late Colorado State University meteorologist William Gray was the first to make seasonal hurricane forecasts in the 1980s.