A hurricane forecaster has lowered the threat for this year's hurricane season slightly, saying that chances are less than half that this season will be above normal.
London-based Tropical Storm Risk issued an updated forecast for this year's Atlantic hurricane season, saying tropical cyclone activity is expected to be 40 percent above the 1950-2006 norm.
In terms of tropical storms and hurricanes, the number of tropical storms predicted in the Atlantic dropped from 15.7 to 14.7, and hurricanes dropped from 8.6 to 7.9. Intense hurricanes fell slightly from 3.9 to 3.5. The comparisons are on a month-to-month basis.
The number of tropical storms predicted to make U.S. landfall dropped from 4.7 to 4.3 and hurricanes dropped from 2.2 to 2.0. The average number is 3.1 tropical storms and 1.5 hurricanes making landfall.
Mark Saunders, the TSR lead scientist at the Benfield Hazard Research Center in London, explained that the effects of La Ni?a, the cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the Pacific, do not appear to be as strong as they were two months ago, contributing to the reduced forecast.
There is only a 5 percent chance of a repeat of last year's El Ni?o, the warming of Pacific waters, that kept several storms from hitting the U.S. Atlantic Coast in 2006, he said.
So far this year, there have been two named tropical storms. The first, Andrea, occurred prior to the beginning of the hurricane storm season which began June 1.
While the season has been quiet so far, this is not an indicator of things to come, as 90 percent of hurricanes occur in August, September and October, Mr. Saunders noted.
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