Nearly two months into the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season three named storms have formed and none of them have seriously threatened energy interests, but forecasters at Andover, MA-based WSI Corp. say they still expect 15 named storms, including eight hurricanes, four of them Category Three or greater — the same as the 1995-2010 average — to form this year.

“Most of the important drivers for tropical activity continue to indicate that an active-normal season lies ahead of us, including warmer-than-normal North Atlantic water temperatures, very low surface pressures in the main development region, and no impending El Nino event,” said WSI Chief Meteorologist Todd Crawford.

The consensus forecast this year is for an above-average hurricane season, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (see Daily GPI, May 20), AccuWeather.com (see Daily GPI, April 26; April 1) and MDA EarthSat all calling for above-average numbers of named storms and hurricanes. Forecasters at Colorado State University have said they expect to see 16 named storms form in the Atlantic Basin by Nov. 30, with nine turning into hurricanes, five of them major hurricanes (see Daily GPI, June 2).

WSI first predicted an active-normal hurricane season in April and reaffirmed that forecast last month (see Daily GPI, June 22; April 27). WSI forecasters have also said they expect the 2011 season to have more impact on the U.S. coastline than the last two hurricane seasons, which produced no landfalling hurricanes. The Gulf Coast is under a significant threat for hurricane landfall, according to WSI, which said it expects two or three landfalling hurricanes this year.

“The forecast numbers from our model are quite similar to those prior to the 2008 season, when Hurricanes Dolly, Gustav and Ike impacted Louisiana and Texas,” Crawford said.

A total of 19 named storms formed in 2010, with 12 of them becoming hurricanes, including five intense hurricanes. The long-term (1950-2009) averages for the Atlantic hurricane season are 10 named storms, six hurricanes and two intense hurricanes; the 1995-2009 averages are 14, eight and four, respectively.

The first named storm of the 2011 hurricane season, which officially began June 1, was Tropical Storm Arlene, which formed June 29 and made landfall in northeastern Mexico before dissipating over the Sierra Madre Mountains July 1. Tropical Storm Bret, which formed north of the Bahamas July 17, and Tropical Storm Cindy, which formed in the central Atlantic Ocean three days later, both dissipated in the North Atlantic late last week without ever making landfall.

On Tuesday the National Hurricane Center (NHC) was monitoring showers and thunderstorms associated with a tropical wave over the northwestern Caribbean between western Cuba and the Cayman Islands. The system had only a 20% chance of becoming a tropical cyclone, according to NHC.

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