ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — The tough task of guessing what hurricane season will look like could be even more difficult this year for forecasters, who won't be able to rely on the relatively predictable forces known as El Nino and La Nina.
So far, the National Hurricane Center in Miami is predicting that the season that begins on Wednesday will be busier than normal, with as many as 18 named tropical storms, three to six of them major hurricanes.
El Nino and La Nina—warming and cooling trends in the ocean that can either rev up hurricanes or suppress them—are expected to be essentially neutral, complicating any predictions. The last time temperatures were neutral was 2005, when hurricanes Katrina and Rita hammered the Gulf Coast with lethal results.
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