September will be a busy month for tropical cyclone activity with five named storms predicted for the month according to The Colorado State University (CSU) forecast team of Phil Klotzbach and William Gray.

The forecast calls for September activity that will be about 190 percent of the month's average. The team predicts four of the five storms will become hurricanes, with two of them becoming major hurricanes - defined as Category 3 or above (sustained winds of 111 mph or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale).

"We expect the month of September to be quite active," said Mr. Klotzbach, lead author of the hurricane forecast in a statement. "We have seen some of the lowest pressure readings on record in the tropical Atlantic during August [and] water temperatures in the tropical Atlantic remain at above-average values. A combination of these two factors typically leads to an active September."

"We predict that September will be quite active based on climate signals through August," said

William Gray, who has been issuing hurricane forecasts at Colorado State for 25 years, said that predictions from September are also based on signals seen in August.

Summing up the season up to now, the team said that June and July were "very active," with three named storms including Bertha, which was the longest-lived July storm on record.

August saw slightly above-average activity, the team said, due largely to Hurricane Gustav.

Special Reports /

CSU Team Predicts Active Sept. For Storms

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