2007 Hurricane Season Predictions

Expect a Lot of Hurricanes This Year

Experts have just announced that U.S citizens living in near the Gulf and Atlantic coast should be prepared for a busy 2007 hurricane season.

The information has come today from hurricane experts based at the University of Colorado and warns that the U.S Atlantic Basin will have an active hurricane season. The hurricane season begins on June 1 and ends on November 30

The hurricane meteorologists working on the University of Colorado team expect there to be as many as seventeen large storms that from in the Atlantic Basin during the 2007 hurricane season. Of these storms the meteorologists think that at least nine will reach hurricane strength and five of the nine will become significantly large hurricanes of 3 or higher.

One of the meteorologists working on the predictions, Phil Klotzbach, said, "We are calling for a very active hurricane season this year, but not as active as the 2004 and 2005 season. Based on our latest forecast, the probability of a major hurricane making landfall along the U.S. coastline is 74 percent compared with the last-century average of 52 percent."

The hurricane specialists use a number of factors to make their hurricane season predictions. Factors that are used include conditions of the atmosphere and world's oceans such as water surface temperatures, sea level pressures and the behaviour of El Nino. The meteorologists also study the conditions of previous years prior to hurricane season and what actually happened during that season to help predict what might happen in the upcoming hurricane season.

The hurricane forecasters have said that the combination of warm north Atlantic water surface temperatures, warm tropical water surface temperatures and the low La Nina activity all contribute to the formation of a lot of storms.

In 2006 the hurricane season brought two large hurricanes, five hurricanes and ten named storms, but luckily no of these storms made landfall on the U.S coast. 2005 was a very active hurricane season, which saw a total of 27 storms. Of these storms seven developed into large hurricanes and another fifteen reached hurricane levels.