Forecaster Lowers Hurricane Estimate

Tropical Storm Cristobal spun harmlessly at sea off the North Florida coast Wednesday as a noted hurricane forecaster said recent climate changes signal an unexpectedly quiet Atlantic hurricane season.

Colorado State University professor William Gray, who has had some success in predicting the severity of hurricane activity in the past, lowered his prediction for the current season from 11 named storms, an above-average season, to nine, a below average one.

A strengthening El Nino, the Pacific warm-water phenomenon that tends to diminish Atlantic hurricane activity, and cooling Atlantic surface temperatures, increasing sea pressures and the strengthening of tropical Atlantic easterly trade winds set the stage for the reduced forecast.

“We have rarely witnessed the rapid and simultaneous types of Atlantic basin hurricane-inhibiting conditions that have taken place between April and July this year,” Gray said in a news release.

On May 31, the day before the start of the six-month Atlantic hurricane season, Gray predicted 11 named storms and said six would become hurricanes, two of those “major” storms with winds of more than 111 mph.

His revised forecast released Wednesday predicted nine named storms, four hurricanes and only one major hurricane. He also said the probability of a major hurricane hitting the U.S. coast was 49%, below the long-term average of 52%.

Three weak tropical storms have already formed in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico this year.