Hurricane forecaster Dr. William Gray of Colorado State University cut his prior tropical storm forecast for the year by one but said the hurricane season this summer should still be more active than normal with 12 named storms (average is 9.6), seven hurricanes (average is 5.9), three intense (category 3-4-5) hurricanes (average is 2.3) and overall net tropical cyclone activity of 125% of the average year for the period between 1950-2000.

“Presently, a weak to moderate El Niño event is likely for the summer of 2002. We anticipate that this…warming [of equatorial Pacific waters] will act as a modest inhibiting influence on 2002 activity whereas North Atlantic [sea surface temperature] patterns are expected to continue to be an enhancing influence on hurricane activity as they have been during the last seven years,” Gray and his team of forecasters said in their April seasonal forecast update.

Despite lowering his projection for the season, Gray said the United States has been very lucky over the last seven years in avoiding major hurricanes. That luck isn’t likely to continue.

“In terms of the ratio of the number of U.S.major hurricane landfalls per number of Atlantic basin major hurricanes, the last seven years have witnessed a very strong downturn,” he said. “[T]he U.S.Gulf in the last seven years has experienced only 46% as many major hurricane landfall events per Atlantic basin major hurricanes as during the average of the previous 95 years. The Florida and the East Coast rate of landfalling major hurricanes the last seven years has been only 22% as great and the whole U.S.coastline 35% as great. This fortuitous landfall downturn is unlikely to persist.”

Gray said there is a 75% chance this year that a hurricane will hit some part of the U.S. coastline. There’s a 57% chance one will hit the East Coast, and there’s a 43% chance one will visit production areas in the Gulf of Mexico and make landfall somewhere along the Gulf Coast.

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