Forecast: expect more hurricanes

This year's Atlantic hurricane season, which officially begins June 1, is expected to be far more active than normal.

That's according to three forecasting groups, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which released its seasonal forecast Tuesday.

They anticipate as many as 17 tropical storms this year, of which 10 could form hurricanes. Up to five of those could become intense hurricanes, with maximum sustained winds of more than 111 miles an hour and storm surges at least nine feet above normal.

"We're in an active era that started in 1995," said Gerry Bell, the lead meteorologist for NOAA's seasonal forecasts. Historically, these active periods last from 25 to 40 years. So "there's a high probability of an above-normal season this year," he said.

Another group, led by the Benfield Hazard Research Centre at University College of London, estimates that between June and November, enough hurricanes will hit the US coast to vault the season into the top third of active seasons.

Last year saw similar early forecasts for a very active season. But in the end, the season produced only seven hurricanes, and none made landfall as a hurricane along the US and Canadian coasts.

Forecasters say they were blindsided in large part by mild El Niño conditions in the tropical Pacific that emerged during the late summer, on the eve of the most active period in a season.

When El Niño appears, it tends to suppress hurricane formation in the Atlantic basin. In addition, a recurring, dust-laden layer of air stretched out over the Atlantic from western Africa and kept a lid on storm formation, preventing tall thunderheads from forming and becoming tropical systems.

This year, however, the Atlantic is unlikely to get that kind of help, forecasters say. El Niño has dissipated, and NOAA forecasters suggest its opposite, La Niña, may take its place this year. This, combined with other atmospheric and ocean indicators in the Atlantic, suggests that the stage is set for a busy season.

The seasonal outlooks come at a time of some angst – and urgency – regarding the future of research aimed at improving forecasts of individual storms.

During Tuesday's briefing, NOAA administrator Conrad Lautenbacher Jr. highlighted the $300 million the US is spending to support hurricane research and operational forecasting.

Last week, however, the National Hurricane Center's director publicly chided his bosses at NOAA headquarters in Washington for cutting the National Weather Service's research budget. According to NOAA officials in Washington, the agency is spending some $1.5 million over two years on activities to celebrate 200 years of federally funded science research.

The costs of those celebrations equal the cuts the weather service faces in its severe-storm research program, according to an analysis earlier this month by Kei Koizumi, the budget guru at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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