The latest forecast for the North Atlantic Ocean was released today by the U. K. Met Office. It says that they expect a total number of named storms of 13, just slightly above the long-term average of 12 storms. NOAA will be releasing its own forecast soon, and I don’t expect it to be much different than this one. Of course, it only takes one hitting near you to cause a lot of problems, so now is the time to prepare! We’ve already had one named storm, Subtropical Storm Andrea, which lasted only a day before dissipating in the Atlantic Ocean, but more will certainly come over the next six months or so. You can read their report with more details here.
This is a little higher than what I was expecting due to the continuing influence of El Niño, which often reduces the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic. However, since this is a weak event, it may not influencing the projections much one way or another. For more discussion on how El Niño affects hurricanes, please read this article in Florida Today.
