The NHC will release a revised forecast for the 2006 season on August 8.
Number of Factors
CSU's Gray, a pioneer in long-range hurricane forecasting, said in a prepared statement that the relatively quiet beginning to the 2006 season did not prompt CSU forecasters to reduce their prediction.
"We're not reducing the number of hurricanes because we had only two named storms through late July," Gray said. "It's a general erosion of a number of factors.
"The tropical Atlantic sea-surface temperatures are not quite as warm, tropical Atlantic surface pressure is not quite as low, the eastern equatorial Pacific has warmed some, and trade winds in the tropical Atlantic are slightly stronger," he said.
The CSU forecasters also think the U.S. Atlantic Coast is the most likely place to see a landfall.
"This year it looks like the East Coast is more likely to be targeted by Atlantic Basin hurricanes than the Gulf Coast, although the possibility exists that any point along the U.S. coast could be affected by a hurricane," Klotzbach said.
Willie Drye is the author of Storm of the Century: the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, published by National Geographic Books.
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