NU Online News Service, Aug. 3, 2:30 p.m. EDT

The fifth named storm of the 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season formed just as Colorado State University (CSU) experts issued a slightly upgraded forecast for the remainder of the season.

Tropical Storm Ernesto is forecast to track over the Caribbean Sea and strengthen to hurricane status as it passes Jamaica by Tuesday of next week, reports Risk Management Solutions (RMS), becoming a Category 1 hurricane is it reaches Mexico by Wednesday.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Friday that Ernesto's center was located over the St. Vincent Passage in the Lesser Antille's Windward Islands. The storm has sustained maximum winds of 45 mph extending up to 115 miles from Ernesto's center. It is too early to tell whether Ernesto will impact the U.S.

Tropical cyclone activity for the rest of the season will be about 90 percent of the average, states the CSU Forecast Team, a slightly increased outlook that is still suppressed due to the likelihood of an El Niño event. In 2011, tropical cyclone activity was 145 percent of the typical season.

The forecast team of Phil Klotzbach and William Gray, head of CSU's Tropical Meteorology Project and climate-change skeptic, now predict 14 named storms in total, including six hurricanes and two major hurricanes sustaining winds of 111 mph or higher.

The scientists have added one storm since their June forecast. The updated prediction accounts for four named storms and one hurricane in May and June.

“We have increased our seasonal forecast from early April and early June, due to a combination of uncertainty in El Niño as well as slightly more favorable tropical Atlantic conditions,” Klotzbach said. “Still, the probability of U.S. major hurricane landfall and Caribbean major hurricane activity for the remainder of the 2012 season is estimated to be slightly below its long-period average.”

There is a 48 percent chance that a major hurricane will yet make landfall on U.S. shores this year, with a 28 percent chance that the East Coast and Florida Peninsula will be hit and a 28 percent chance that the Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle west to Brownsville will be affected.

Special Reports /

Storm Ernesto Forms; CSU Upgrades 2012 Tropical Cyclone Forecast

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