Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com

New forecast downgrades hurricane threat for 2006
09-17-2006

PARIS, France (AFP): A new forecast for the hurricane season on Friday downgraded expectations for this year's harvest of storms, saying it will probably be average in numbers and in intensity.

Tropical Storm Risk (TSR), a London-based group of scientists, said they expected 13 tropical storms for the Atlantic during the season, which runs from June 1 to November 30.

Six of these would be hurricanes and two would be intense hurricanes, it said.

Four tropical storms will make landfall on the United States, one or two of them hurricanes, TSR said.

"The updated prediction includes a 22 percent probability of an above-normal Atlantic hurricane season, a 52 percent probability of a near-normal season and a 26-percent chance of a below-normal season," it said in a press release.

The previous forecasts by TSR this year had forecast activity that would be 40 percent above the historical norm.

On June 8, it had predicted 14 tropical storms for the season, eight of which would be hurricanes and three of which would be intense hurricanes. Four tropical storms would make landfall on the US, two of them hurricanes.

To date, there have been landfalls by two tropical storms on the United States this season.

TSR (tropicalstormrisk.com) groups scientists from University College London's Benfield Hazard Research Centre, which is sponsored by the reinsurance industry.

Its forecast is based on the sea surface temperature and trade wind speed in the Caribbean and tropical North Atlantic, which are the two main drivers for whipping up hurricanes.

In all, 2005 saw a record 15 hurricanes among an unprecedented 28 named storms that formed in the Atlantic. For the first time on record, seven of the hurricanes were considered major, meaning they hit category three or higher.

It was also the costliest hurricane season, with damage estimated at more than 100 billion dollars, most of it inflicted Hurricane Katrina.