NU Online News Service, May 30, 12:14 p.m.EDT

Despite the appearance of two pre-season tropical storms thereis no change in the Atlantic hurricane forecast, which calls for anaverage year of storms, says one catastrophe modeler.

With the official start of the Atlantic Hurricane Season set tobegin June 1, catastrophe modeler RMS released its pre-seasoncommentary, saying conditions remain right for the total number oftropical storms “to be near the long-term average of 10.7 tropicalstorms.”

The season was kicked off early with Tropical Strom Alberto onMay 19. RMS says Alberto is the earliest tropical storm to occursince Tropical Storm Ana on April 20, 2003.

The second named storm of the season, Tropical Strom Beryl,formed on May 27 and made landfall on Monday May 28.

According to the National Weather Service, Beryl, now a tropicaldepression, is centered off the coast of South Carolina movingeast-northeast with sustained winds of 35 mph. The storm isexpected to move along or just off the coast of North and SouthCarolina tonight before moving out into the Atlantic. The stormcould strengthen over the next 48 hours and regain tropical-stormstrength later today, the National Weather Service says.

RMS notes that while some existing conditions could drive higherAtlantic basin-activity, other factors, such as higher wind shearover the Atlantic, have increased “the likelihood of a near-normalseason in 2012.”

RMS says sea-surface temperatures, which drive storms, are belowaverage in the Atlantic main, but just above average in theCaribbean and Gulf of Mexico.

“The status of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) canalso play a part in affecting the total number of storms during aseason, with a higher number of tropical storms typicallycorrelated with La Niña conditions and a lower number correlatedwith El Niño conditions,” says Neena Saith, director of catastropheresponse at RMS. “There is a high amount of uncertainty associatedwith the seasonal forecasts, especially given the difficulty inpredicting Atlantic sea-surface temperatures pre-season.”

The report cites the U.S. Climate Prediction Center assaying La Niña conditions dissipated in April, with “both oceanicand atmospheric patterns indicating a transition to ENSO-neutralconditions.”

RMS also notes that while the seasonal prediction calls for anaverage Hurricane season, it does not predict landfall rates orinsured losses in the “Americas [that] remain highly dependent uponspecific storm tracks and the behavior of individual storms.”