Hurricane experts offer a cautious forecast for season

McClatchy Newspapers

MIAMI — Conceding that recent forecasts have been — to be candid — flat wrong, a team of university scientists Wednesday predicted an above-average hurricane season.

The team from Colorado State University, formed by scientist William Gray, is expecting 15 named storms that grow into eight hurricanes, including four intense hurricanes with winds above 110 mph.

That’s a slight rise from the team’s prediction in December that the season would produce 13 named storms that become seven hurricanes, including three that are intense.

“We are calling for a very active hurricane season this year, but not as active as the 2004 and 2005 seasons,” said scientist Phil Klotzbach, who leads the team.

The long-term averages are 11 named storms and six hurricanes, two of them intense. The six-month season begins June 1.

Gray and his team acknowledge that their full-season forecasts have been wrong for the past three years, as have similar predictions by government forecasters based in Maryland.

Other scientists say that these forecasts should be viewed with some skepticism, and they worry that errors in the long-term predictions will undermine faith in real-time forecasts of actual storms.