Steamy ocean means ‘a very, very busy season’ for hurricanes, early forecasts say

The upcoming hurricane season is shaping up to be another extremely active one, powered by the Atlantic’s record-breaking run of high temperatures.

The early season forecast from Colorado State University – an early pioneer of preseason hurricane forecasting – calls for another above-average season. The bottom line: Florida and other coastal states should prepare for when the season begins on June 1.

Specifically, the forecast calls for 23 named storms, 11 of which could form hurricanes and five that could strengthen into major hurricanes, Category 3 or higher. The average season has 14 named storms, 7 hurricanes and 3 major hurricanes.

That would put this season on par with some of the most active on record, including 2020, where there were so many storms the National Hurricane Center ran out of names and had to switch to an alternate list of Greek letters.

“This is the highest April forecast we’ve put out,” Phil Klotzbach, CSU meteorologist and lead author of the forecast, told a crowd of meteorologists at the National Tropical Weather Conference Thursday. “We are forecasting a very very busy season.”