Time to build shutters

Read this from The Source. www.stjohnsource.com. Looks like I need to build my shutters this month.

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Renowned Storm Forecasters Predict Busy Hurricane Season
By Lynda Lohr — June 2, 2010

Chances are good that a major hurricane will track into the Caribbean during the 2010 hurricane season, Colorado State University forecasters Phil Klotzbach and William Gray said in a press release issued Wednesday.
They put the probability of a major hurricane tracking into the Caribbean at 65 percent. The average for the last century is 42 percent.
Hurricane season runs June 1 through Nov. 30.
“We anticipate a well above-average probability of United States and Caribbean major hurricane landfall,” Gray said.
The team upped its April prediction to 18 named storms, with 10 of them developing into hurricanes. Klotzbach and Gray expect five of them to become major hurricanes with winds of 111 mph or greater.
In April, Klotzbach and Gray suggested that the number of named storms would sit at 15, with eight of them becoming hurricanes. They expected four of them to become major hurricanes. The long-term averages are 9.6 named storms, 5.9 hurricanes and 2.3 major hurricanes per year.
Their forecast comes on the heels of one issued last week by the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, which put the number of named storms at 14 to 23. They expect eight to 14 of them to develop into hurricanes and three to seven to reach major status.
The Colorado State hurricane forecast team predicts tropical cyclone activity in 2010 will be 195 percent of the average season. By comparison, 2009 witnessed tropical cyclone activity that was about 69 percent of the average season.
Currently observed climate factors are similar to conditions that occurred during the 1958, 1966, 1969, and 2005 seasons, the Colorado State team said. The average of these four seasons had well above-average activity, and Klotzbach and Gray predict the 2010 season will have activity in line with the average of these four years.
According to Klotzbach, the current trend from El Nino to neutral conditions will persist and weak La Nina conditions will develop by the most active portion of this year’s hurricane season in August through October.
“El Ninos typically increase levels of vertical wind shear in the tropical Atlantic, causing detrimental conditions for Atlantic tropical cyclone formation and intensification,” Klotzbach said.
The hurricane team's forecasts are based on the premise that global oceanic and atmospheric conditions—such as El Nino, sea surface temperatures and sea level pressures—that preceded active or inactive hurricane seasons in the past provide meaningful information about similar trends in future seasons.
The team also updated its U.S. landfall probabilities, which are calculated based on historical landfall statistics and then adjusted by the latest seasonal forecast.
"The probability of a major hurricane making landfall along the U.S. coastline is 76 percent compared with the last-century average of 52 percent," Klotzbach said.
The team will issue a final seasonal forecast update on Aug. 4.