Experts predict 6 -- 8 Atlantic hurricanes

Now that hurricane season – June 1 to Nov. 30 – has arrived, Florida Panhandle residents will see whether their lucky streak will continue. A major storm hasn’t hit the area since Hurricane Opal in October 1995.

However, hurricane specialists at the National Hurricane Center, or NHC, in Miami predict six to eight hurricanes in the Atlantic region this year. The government research center forecasts nine to 13 tropical storms and two to three major hurricanes during the current season. A major storm has winds of 111 m. p. h. or more.
This year’s prediction is for fewer than the 15 named storms that formed in the Atlantic last year but more than the ten named storms that form in a typical hurricane season. Although no land-falling hurricanes have struck the U. S. in the past two years, the center warns Gulf and Atlantic coast residents to prepare.

In six of the last seven hurricane seasons, hurricane activity has been above normal due to warmer-than-usual Atlantic waters, center researchers say. Warmer ocean waters reduce wind sheer, which breaks up storms before they form. Slowly shifting ocean currents are causing Atlantic’s warming, which is expected to last at least ten more years.

The NHC’s prediction mirrors that of hurricane expert William Gray, of Colorado State University. Gray anticipates 12 named storms – seven of which will develop into hurricanes and three of them major – in the Atlantic this season. There is a 75 percent chance that a major hurricane will hit the U. S. coast, he adds.
Hurricanes have been named since 1953 because names are simpler to remember and less subject to error than latitude-longitude identification. Six alphabetically-ordered lists of names are used in rotation, so the same names re-appear in subsequent hurricane seasons. However, if a storm is devastating enough that future use of its name would be inappropriate, that name is retired from the rotation and replaced with another.

2002 hurricane names are as follows:
Arthur
Bertha
Cristobal
Dolly
Edouard
Fay
Gustav
Hanna
Isidore
Josephine
Kyle
Lili
Marco
Nana
Omar
Paloma
Rene
Sally
Teddy
Vicky
Wilfred

For additional information, log on to the National Hurricane Center's Web site at http://hurricane.weathercenter.com

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